by frog
Published in THE ISSUES by frog on Sat, March 24th, 2012
Tags: general debate
General debate, March 24, 2012
Published: March 24, 2012
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How do these general debates work? Can we assert any political issue we want?
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Yep! Provided you’re not promoting completely debunked ones, you should be OK Andrew Atkin.
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Thank you, Jackal.
Okay!
Here is somethng that everyone should look at seriously – especially Julie-Anne Genter because she seems to have interest in psychology.
The highest of places tend to attract the lowest of people (sometimes the highest too, of course – but often the lowest). Eg: Churches that provide an avenue for priests who like to bugger little boys.
I’m talking about psychopaths – not the sadistic Hollywood-style ones, but the corporate ones. Psychopathy is a real condition that, as is estimated, about 2% of the population is born with.
The simplist way to describe a psychopath is as someone who utterly does not care about their impact on others, and is actually neurologically incapable of caring. They are attracted to power and are very good at putting on the face and profile that they know we all want to see. They are likewise hard to recognise. They are notorisouly “charming” but are in fact terribly dangerous.
However, we now have the tools to clinically recognise them by using brain scans, and other more general tests. So, why don’t we start screening for them in our political? Why doesn’t the Green party set a standard (security check) and make it official policy to screen its own members for this condition?
My detailed explanation/argument:
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2011/02/should-we-be-screening-for-psychopathy.html
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Please make the time to do so. Every green minded person should,(so should everyone else). BJ..right up your alley!
@Andrew Atkin…I love the mountains, what are you implying?
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samiam:
Don’t really understand your question. I’m implying exactly what I said. I’m a long believer in the idea of screening *all* politicians for psychopathy, as standard practice.
If I had my own political party it would be in-house policy. But someone needs to lead by example to get the issue on the table – why not the Greens? I’ve already sent the idea to John Key and he doesn’t seem to want to do it (yet?).
And for the record, I doubt hugely that Julie-Anne is herself a psychopath.
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Are you suggesting people should be barred from working in certain positions if they’re judged to be a psychopath, or merely to screen for them so people are recognised as having that condition? (If the latter, what then?)
Side note: Several months ago, I/S on NoRightTurn commented on psychopaths in corporate management positions.
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Isn’t ‘psycopath a pre-requisite of corporate management success? No room for empathy in the boardroom.
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samiam:
Yes, sorry I jumped the gun in my response – too consumed with getting my idea across.
MikeM:
Barred – no. Psychological profile made public so we can know what we’re buying? – absolutely.
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samiam:
yes – a corporation is functionally psychopathic.
All the “love” they give their staff and customers boils down only to the bottom-line. Like for a psychopath, literally nothing is done unless it is ultimately for a self-serving purpose.
A ‘clean’ businesses man is possibly ruthless as the corporate world may demand it for survival. But a psychopathic businesses man is ruthless yet pretends to everyone he has ‘hugs and kisses’ motives, because it allows him to extract even more out of others (psychopaths tend to be wolves in sheeps clothing). So, they are more than the mere ruthless – they are dead creepy.
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I wouldn’t rule out screening without more info, but if you happen to know that someone’s a psychopath according to a test, what then? Do you tell them they’re not allowed to live their life, or that they have to perpetually start taking some kind of medication if they’re to work in certain jobs? Do you publish it in a database or broadcast it to the world so that everyone possibly hiring them or voting for them knows in advance that they’re considered a psychopath?
I’d be ultra-cautious about pushing for something that might might cause people to be judged badly because of who they are according to a test instead of for how they act.
In my mind the biggest problem isn’t so much having psychopaths in power, whether it’s corporate or political. It’s that when a psychopath is in power, and does something genuinely psychopathic (whatever that might be), they can be cheered on by the public and encouraged to do it again. I think Gardiner Morse has a point that psychopathic qualities are often mistaken for leadership qualities, but if that’s the case is says to me that people often don’t know what good leadership qualities really are. And if people don’t know that, what’s to say they even care one way or another?
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MikeM:
I think you’re underestimating how dangerous psychopathy is, and its nature. It’s what psychopaths are doing behind our backs that may be most concerning.
However, the option of privacy should always be there if someone tests out badly, but in the political world that option should come with a resignation as well.
Also, there is no known cure for psychopathy, and it cannot be managed with medication.
Really, what do we have to lose with psychopathy screening? It will only boost our protection from corruption (legal type or other).
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Well there’s the whole slippery slope issue for one thing. You’re advocating removal of rights and providing specific cases in which it’s okay to publish people’s personal medical records in a way directly intended to affect their employment prospects before they’ve even done anything wrong, or demonstrated that they were going to.
When is it okay to do this kind of thing and when isn’t it, and why? Whose compass are we using for deciding that it’s okay to rid the leadership of psychopaths, but not of people with low (or high) IQ or corporate billionaires or people over 65 or people with bad eyesight?
Maybe there is useful reasoning behind screening and publishing of psychopath info and I don’t dispute psychopaths are linked to many problems, but I don’t think it’s a good course of action to start attacking people’s personal conditions before looking extensively at ways to curb and prevent the actual actions that are the problem.
If politicians and corporate leaders, psychopathic or not, can get away with secretly and destructively undermining process and good government/management, why is that? Shouldn’t we start by seriously overhauling and enforcing the laws and systems that govern freedom of information about governments and companies, and the laws that govern prosecution of the people who break the rules?
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I don’t have any problem with the screening notion, but I do with the publication.
Just can’t see how to go there without trampling the individual’s rights.
That doesn’t mean I want corporations (which are by their design and definition, sociopathic) or individuals who are high scoring as psychopathic, running the country. Just means that I want to cause that restriction to exist WITHOUT publicly revealing people’s scores.
Don’t know how to do that.
ciao
BJ
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Yeah, just to be clear I do think some form of testing is fine if it helps to identify people for their own benefit. People are already tested and screened for heaps of things for their own benefit and sometimes those around them as a consequence, but results typically aren’t public information unless a person chooses to talk about it.
I’m also not convinced that publication of information will result in any real benefit, certainly not to out-weigh the down side. In a political context there are countless examples of people voting irrationally, without taking into account a candidate’s past history that’s entirely on the record. Why should info about them being a psychopath along with 100,000 other people result in anything different? In the corporate world I’m sure there are plenty of examples of people screwing up companies, floating away and being irrationally hired by new companies to screw them over, too, despite their past history that’s on the record for anyone who looks for it. I don’t think labeling people as ‘diagnosed psychopath’ so everyone can see will necessarily solve any problems, and it’ll very likely cause a few.
I don’t especially want psychopaths running or influencing the country either, but until a better option comes along, the best way I can think of for coping with psychopaths is to make it harder for them, or anyone, to actively do things that are generally considered abusive of positions to which they’ve been assigned without quickly being noticed, caught and stopped if necessary.
Psychopaths or not, there are plenty of examples of the presiding government and past governments ignoring processes and laws that exist largely with the intent of preventing exactly the sorts of things you might expect psychopaths to be doing, and I find it insulting that Ministers are not just being able to get away with this so easily, but have certain groups of people cheering them on for doing so.
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I suspect that Key would score as rather more psychopathic than average. That nickname they hung on him … “The smiling assassin” is a clue.
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Am I right in thinking that you are seriously suggesting psychological profiling of anyone who joins a political party? Slippery slope indeed!What an unusual choice of topic to debate.
People are known and judged by their words and actions. I suggest it would be more useful to maintain a robust local and national political system with checks and balances that doesn’t allow any one person, or group, unbridled power over others.
If you relied on testing the psychopaths are just going to lie anyway.
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How about the rights of 4 million people in New Zealand to prescribe the checks and balances for those who they may assign the power to send them to fucking war and get killed. And other.
Understand this: Hitlers and Stalin’s are NOT unusual – they are everywhere, waiting in the wings. Principles of liberty and individual rights must be applied with perspective.
TEST THE POLITICIANS. SCREEN FOR PSYCHOPATHY. DON’T BE A FOOL.
If we can clinically recognise a politician psychopath then PLEASE DO SO.
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Something to watch — I read through Federated Mountain Clubs that DoC is now in the process of drafting the new Conservation Management Strategies for most parts of New Zealand, although the entire process began about mid 2011. These are the 10 year plans for different regions, and presently they’re nearly all up for review except for Stewart Island/Rakiura and the West Coast.
The present stage is in authoring the drafts, which will be influenced by submissions from various stakeholding organisations, so if you’re affiliated with such an organisation (FMC is one, probably others like Forest & Bird) then they might have a place for input into their submission. After that, the drafts go up for public submission around September/October. The new strategies will be in a different for from the older ones, because DoC’s keen to shift towards a more simplified template for the entire country.
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Re, the psychopath ‘screening’ issue.
Are you guys effing serious? If being a psychopath involves a blatant disregard for others wouldn’t that in itself be the screening process
The Labour party has been recently purged of several of its psychopaths, perhaps democracy works after all.
And being in banking doesn’t make you any more a psychopath than building long drops makes you a fecalfeliac.
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Andrew Atkin,
I am not sure how well your idea will work. For example, how accurate are the tests you mention for psychopaths? What is the rate of false positives and negatives? Remember psychopaths are usually good at hiding their darker side, so they probably will be able to work out a way around the screening.
I reckon there is another solution. In my experience, psychopaths tend to target those who they perceive to be weak, and leave the strong people alone. For example, I was in a work situation where my boss took a dislike for some reason to a female work colleague. I’m not totally sure why, it could have been sexism or racism (which I think is what she thought it was), but I suspect it was because she was more highly qualified than the boss. Then she went on maternity leave. When she came back, he made life hell for her. She was assigned all the most tedious, boring tasks, and was told that she “didn’t fit in” to the company’s culture. This action was bordering on illegal, but there was always a way where he could cover himself. To the people he had a “use” for, he was very nice, and he always put on a very good show to managers higher than him. He was actually quite a popular guy. Eventually the woman resigned, and no one apart from a few of her colleagues knew what had happened.
This is a typical way that psychopaths operate. Rather than trying to screen them out (which I suspect may be unreliable), why not set up structures which give people strength to resist the psychopaths when they are encountered? For example, I am a union delegate at work. I’m always trying to get people to join the union, and one of my tactics is to tell them it is like an insurance policy against the “boss from hell”. But do people listen? No … or very rarely do they. Instead they only come running to the union when they actually find themselves deep in the shit, by which time it is often too late. Still, I reckon the solution is there. If we build up strong structures to protect the 98% of us (or whatever it is) who are not psychopaths, then we could make it very difficult for the 2% who are.
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Shunda,
The word you are looking for is “fecalpheliac”. Totally off topic, but your post reminded me of this: http://www.jldr.com/specialist.htm
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No Shunda.. Andrew suggested it, and I at least, decided that there was no practical means of implementing it, even if I like it in theory. We DID have something to think about though, and Andrew is definitely NOT entirely wrong. It would be a very good thing if we COULD do that screening.
I want to live in “Theory” because everything works there.
This would not be able to be implemented in any manner I can imagine.
Even if I regard psychopaths as being undeserving of inclusion on the ark. The society I live in can’t survive having a test like that being done to decide who lives and who dies.. because that would be the end result of it. It is not just a slippery slope.
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So what happens next time someone who isn’t a clinically diagnosed psychopath comes along and does something that’s worthy of a psychopath?
I think the core of the problem I have here is that it targets suspicious looking people instead of actual behaviours, and targeting people in such a way undermines the system that’s allegedly being protected. If you don’t want it to be possible for certain things to happen, then by all means identify what they are and arrange the system and the rules so that it’s very hard for them to actually happen. But if that gate’s left open, it won’t take a psychopath to do it some day, or if it does then it still won’t stop them being elected, and that’s before even considering the difficulty of passing a law that says anyone who wants to get into politics needs to have their head examined.
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The Tories in party funding strife once again.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17503116
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Psychopaths convince naive people that their shit is sugar, knowing full well that what they are really selling snake oil. They are extremely good manipulators. The use useful fools. They use unstable, infantile and unintelligent personalities to their ends. Etc. They win votes with serious election bribes, etc. What we call the ‘politicisation’ of issues is really just corruption; you know, screw the truth – win the votes.
Psychopaths find all this “normal” political behaviour effortless. Normal’s find it hard. This is why normal’s struggle to compete with them in politics. So, do you want to see an end to it? Or at least a major reduction?
And why is there no practical means of implementing psychopathy screening? Screening is done in parts of the USA on teachers and firemen. Also, insecurities with testing mechanisms, as they may exist, can and should be openly expressed to the public.
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Fyi: The Green party probably has a handful of true-blue psychopaths in it. The same goes for ACT, and the other parties as well.
Don’t you wanna check to see who they are? How can this not be a good idea?
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It is “not a good idea” because the FUNDAMENTAL change in the society which it creates is “not a good idea”.
The tests for psychopathy are complex, by no means foolproof, difficult to correctly administer and interpret. Psychology is one of the FUZZY subjects. You don’t often get clear cut answers. I have a Bachelor’s degree in it from many years ago. Sapient is more current.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist
The problem with this is that we would be creating a society in which some tests, administered by the state, with records that follow us forever, would be public knowledge. The test results would be mis-interpretable by everyone, and they would keep some of us out of jobs and relationships, not just politics – there is an eugenic component to this.
We don’t (as a society) want psychopaths anywhere… do we? Testing for politicians only, with publicized results would have a brutal effect. The diagnosis could turn into something akin to a death sentence… and it is not that accurate.
This is not a society we want, because there is no cure. I know I cannot go there, and I doubt any other Green can.
So now, after thinking about this a lot, the question is whether there IS any way to manage it.
The tests could be privately done, just for people who are planning to enter politics. Only they and the clinician know the result. If they then decide to enter politics, the result can voluntarily be made public.
This might be possible for a party to require of its candidates… but would be damnably hard on folks already IN politics. The only way to handle them is that the requirement is strictly voluntary for them. They do not need to publicize a result – ever
Complicated, difficult and expensive even if we could get it to work.
It’d be a hell of a campaign pitch. We’re sane and we can prove it?
Not funny.
I don’t think you’ll find many such folks among the Greens though. Really. Think about it, think about our policies… the diffuse nature of our vote. It is quite unlikely.
…and still not a “good” idea. Less bad if we manage the implementation so the info stays private.
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Bjchip:
Quote: “The tests for psychopathy are complex, by no means foolproof, difficult to correctly administer and interpret.”
Are you sure? What makes you come to this conclusion?
I’m not talking about just the questionnaires (and yeah, they’ll always be loose, in themselves) – I’m talking about the brain scans that apparently show direct correlations to the structure and functioning of the brain, and the condition of psychopathy (no empathy).
EEG and MRI scans have been giving the psychology (neurology) world a developing revolution. We’re not in the Freudian stone age anymore. They don’t tell us all, of course, but they tell us show so much more. Correlations can make any given test so much more robust. How robust? That’s the other question – we can look at it more closely.
The idea that the Greens have no psychopaths…well, you (and I) really, really can’t know. Being a Greeny and saying all the Greeny things would be a perfect cover. Believe psychopaths think like that. Apparently almost *anyone* can be fooled by them, at least for some time.
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Continued…
Ultimately there might be casualties if a test is not as accurate as desired. Remember privacy can be protected with a resignation. Are those casualties worth it? I for one would think so. It’s just too important to get psychopaths out of politics – for as much as we can, at least.
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Andrew,
Why stop at psychopaths?
Who is the certifier? What qualifications will they need? Who certifies them? Who checks their findings?
Do all psycopaths need to wear a badge to identify them to the general public (shades of the Star of David)?
It is a slippery slope you are proposing.
Much better if we have openess in politics and let the voter decide on the suitablity of a candidate.
I though we had came a bit further along from them days.
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Andrew- so now you are suggesting brain scans!!
I think your suggestion has been well and truly discussed, time to move on. You posted at 2am & again this morning. Time to go outside & get some fresh air.
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It’s a tricky question, whether the greater good trumps peoples right to privacy. I think in general people’s privacy must take priority. However in high powered jobs where great harm can be caused by sociopaths, their privacy to keep such a condition secret from the voting public is not the priority.
The other issue here is that any sort of screening process needs to be more than just superficial. Sociopaths are experts at hiding their condition. A group of sociopaths aren’t going to tick the right boxes either to ensure the most sociopathic amongst them doesn’t rise to the top. In fact a group of sociopaths are going to encourage each other to be even more callous, selfish, dishonest, arrogant, impulsive, irresponsible, and hedonistic etc.
Where I think we need to be clear is that sociopaths are not usually born that way, they are created. If we as a society are creating sociopaths to rule us, then we must also look at the way society works. However the line in the sand re the publics right to privacy shouldn’t be crossed. We need to ensure society creates better politicians, with better ways of removing them from places of power when they exhibit signs of psychopathy.
MikeM
You do see the problem here? If the people who are “arranging” things are the psychopaths in places of power, they will be arranging the systems to keep their sociopathy secret. They will try to make it more difficult to remove them.
bjchip
Or at least an end to their political career. Let’s not go over the top and say that screening for politicians would greatly impact society and everybody in it. Depending on how the process was implemented, prospective politicians would know in advance that they were going to be screened, and this would hopefully keep many sociopaths away. Such a system would not work if it was voluntary.
Likening Andrew Atkin’s suggestion to protect the publics interest to Nazism Gerrit, is rotten. Perhaps you should think about what led Germany down that dark path. What if they had screened for sociopaths… would the second world war have even happened I wonder?
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Psychopaths convince naive people that their shit is sugar, knowing full well that what they are really selling snake oil. They are extremely good manipulators. The use useful fools. They use unstable, infantile and unintelligent personalities to their ends.
Andrew, you just described half the population.
There are personality disorders that include all those things and a lot of people display those traits even when they don’t have a diagnosable disorder.
The fact of the matter is we get what we vote for, if people want a psychopath in charge than they will vote them in, when they don’t they will vote them out.
It’s about displacing behaviour, not people.
All that has to happen is for people to value the system and then use it, if people don’t value democracy any longer then tyranny will be more likely.
We get what we deserve.
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would the second world war have even happened I wonder?
Oh for goodness sake! I guess the political climate had nothing to do with it then.
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Shunda barunda
Are you arguing that Hitler and his henchmen weren’t sociopaths?
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Fairfax/Stuff reports on the continuing problems for people with non-English-sounding names in securing job interviews, irrespective of qualifications.
The article blames employers being racist, but I’m curious if a big part of the problem could also be with the typical recruitment process that often involves independent recruitment agents. Does anyone have experience with this stuff?
In my experience (only introspective), the majority of employers go through recruitment agents for specialist jobs, recruitment agents have massive powers to make arbitrary unjustified decisions on whether to short-list people for an employer to see, and they frequently wield these powers in ways that they think will result in the lowest risk to themselves in situations where they often don’t fully understand what they’re recruiting for.
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Are you arguing that Hitler and his henchmen weren’t sociopaths?
That has nothing to do with it, that they were or weren’t is irrelevant.
The tyranny of WW2 had more to do with social Darwinism than sociopaths.
This discussion is getting ridiculous.
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The tyranny of WW2 had more to do with social Darwinism than sociopaths.
Rubbish. This is a silly conflation.
The Nazis used Darwinism as one of many pseudo-scientific figleafs for their ideology (along with a hotch-potch of German Nationalism, Wagnerian romanticism, Aryan ritual theology, anti-Bolshevism and anti-capitalism) but it did not enable the rise on Nazism.
The tyranny of WW2 was an explosion of imperialism (soviet, german, japanese, italian, american and british) pure and simple.
Imperialist behaviour tends to fit the description of sociopathy – callous, selfish, insensitive, dishonest, arrogant, aggressive, impulsive, irresponsible, and hedonistic.
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The stupidity of (partial) taxation: What exactly is bread?
It could happen here, if those that think GST relief on some foodtsuffs get their way…
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Shunda barunda:
Quote: “Andrew, you just described half the population”.
I know. That’s why it’s so important to screen for psychopathy. Too many people are far too impressed by lovely and charming looking psychopaths who know just how to push their buttons.
Remember that in a democracy we all go down with the mob. Including the ones who don’t “deserve” to.
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Jackal:
Quote: “It’s a tricky question, whether the greater good trumps peoples right to privacy”.
We systemically screen people for various positions all the time. Employers ask to review criminal records, for example. The more critical or potentially dangerous the position, the more important it is to screen. No one has a problem with this(?).
Privacy is not violated until you start screening without consent. But people must consent if they want to be a prospect for a given job, as proved by others.
We have every reasonable right to screen for psychopathy when it comes to our politicians, that WE employ to do a job for US. If they don’t like the conditions then they can simply bugger-off, and try to sell themselves to another customer in another country (or whatever).
It’s that simple.
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Viv:
I had to work late last night. If your comment is the best you can do, then you are the one who needs to get some fresh air.
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Jackal –
Someone publicly identified as having failed the test for becoming a politician is going to be essentially unemployable anywhere at all. That’s a BIG risk aspect of this stuff. Basically the tests HAVE to be private, and kept private.
Nobody already in the public eye has to do the test or reveal results because of that. As introducing tests like that and having some people resigning rather than revealing would be just as revealing as releasing the results.
So we’d have to live with the ones we’ve got until they all died off. We’d have to have some sort of standard set up for it.
We’d have to have some sort of law protecting the results and the evaluators from forced revelations. I don’t know if Doctor-Patient covers it well enough.
It’s a hard thing to do. Not cheap either.
ciao
BJ
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bjchip:
They could get the tests themselves very early on in the game – before they even becomes a candidate. It can be discrete. Most psychopaths probably already know what they are anyway.
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Rubbish. This is a silly conflation.
No it bloody well isn’t, the Nazi’s simply implemented what other European and particularly North American researches longed to do.
Hitler even said a certain North American eugenics advocate “wrote the bible on the subject”.
Social Darwinism most certainly was not a Nazi invention, it was the logical progression of the direction many scientists and academics of the time were heading.
I would suggest the Nazis revealed it as the wrong direction, but it wasn’t exactly their idea in the first place.
It’s disturbing how certain people on this thread are creating this almost fundamentalist definition of good and evil as if they themselves are free from such bias and capable of judging the character of others.
It’s funny how some of you chaps are advocating for “screening” that many Nazis would have whole heartedly approved of.
It is a nonsensical ignorant argument and completely unworkable.
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Imperialist behaviour tends to fit the description of sociopathy – callous, selfish, insensitive, dishonest, arrogant, aggressive, impulsive, irresponsible, and hedonistic.
Well waddaya know, Richard Dawkins and his dead mate C Hitchens are (were) sociopaths.
They should be banned.
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For those of you that are struggling with history, here is a direct quote from the one of the leading eugenicists of the day:
“Upon returning from Germany in 1934, where more than 5,000 people per month were being forcibly sterilized, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe bragged to a colleague:
“You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought . . . I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people.”
The Nazis just did what everyone else had started to do, with widespread public approval.
Humans are the problem folks, not just the ones that are diagnosed with a poorly defined personality disorder.
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Andrew – read ALL of my 7 AM post.
BJ
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The holocaust was evil. But eugenics, in itself, is not necessarily evil.
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2009/06/eugenics_18.html
I don’t think Hitler was a psychopath as such. He was insane. WW1, compounding on a probably seriously crap childhood, did his head in.
He was just another tool, I believe.(and maybe even a scape goat?)
Psychopath Vs Sociopath:
No difference. Same thing – different term. I understand ‘sociopath’ was used from a while back when people thought psychopathy was created by social/environmental forces. It isn’t, except maybe epigenetic ‘forces’ within the womb.
The condition of psychopathy is so profound that people are born with it. Psychopathy is not to be confused with Anti-social Personality disorder, which is just a horrible angry person who wants to lash out because of their really bad childhood. We all know those ones – unlike psychopaths they’re obvious. But the ASD’s are still human. They can still actually care.
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bjchip:
Quote: “This might be possible for a party to require of its candidates”.
May be. Some corporations do it. I know people who have had the test as a prerequisite to high responsibility. Maybe political parties could do it (internally) too, at least as a first step.
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Andrew
Whatever else I am agreeing with here, there is NO way that a persons test results can or ever should be public knowledge except on a voluntary basis. That’s a very firm bottom line. What I worked up there, is as far as I am prepared to travel down this path.
…and I am not prepared to make an issue of it. We have a more important agenda to pursue.. If I thought Attila would get action on climate change, I’d vote the Hun party line. Kapische ?
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Mad dog Brownlee
The Finnish media have widely reported the insults and dubbed Brownlee the Minister of violent comments. Polls are running at around 84% of Finn’s wanting an apology and there are reports that the Finnish government has already made a diplomatic complaint…
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bjchip:
I understand you. I don’t think you’ve got it in perspective though.
Imagine how many people would still be alive today if the Bush regime, for example, was screened for psychopathy.
A future wanna-be politician can choose to privately test themselves if they are concerned. They can privately leave the profession, for any ‘created’ reason, if they wish. Privacy can be carefully protected.
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Actually Andrew, my perspective works this way. Hitler, Bush, Stalin et.al. killed millions
…but if we don’t control ourselves with respect to our environment WE will kill billions… maybe even achieve species suicide.
That is my perspective.
BJ
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The Finnish media have widely reported the insults and dubbed Brownlee the Minister of violent comments. Polls are running at around 84% of Finn’s wanting an apology and there are reports that the Finnish government has already made a diplomatic complaint…
Oh diiddums, you really need to stop talking crap Jackal.
If Labour and the Greens want to hold Finland up as some sort of left wing paradise then it is only fair that people check on the details.
And guess what? Finland turns out to be a worse place to live than NZ.
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So does Australia in my mind, but I guess that comes down to what people consider important and I doubt everyone will ever agree on that. Hence an apparent objective to catch up with Australia by doing exactly what Australia does in a place that isn’t Australia.
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Shunda barunda
Shearer was talking about specific policies that have resulted in Finland having the best education system in the world. Brownlee turning it into a pissing competition between countries really does nothing to help our international standing. If you think such things don’t matter Shunda barunda, you need your head read.
John Key defames
Claiming that there is not enough public interest in the teapot tape debacle is ludicrous! The police have in fact labelled Ambrose a criminal without a trial. This is undoubtedly to ensure Key’s complaint isn’t viewed as a wasteful employment of police time…
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Some body cannot read.
All anyone has said on here is that we should be looking for ideas from Education systems that are doing better than ours, which we did in designing the new NZ curriculum. Not ones that are doing much worse.
Hardly an extreme left idea.
I do agree on Sue Bradford’s, and others, contempt for democracy. That is just as apparent, if not more so, from the right.
National were happy to keep the extension to police powers, to harass poor people, that section 59 allowed.
AND. CERA, Search and surveillance bill, asset sales and with holding money from Auckland as punishment for electing a “left wing” Mayor, to name a few.
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AND. Catching up with Australia by reducing wages is not going to happen!
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Catching up with Australia – mining in delicate ecosystems and high rainfall areas is not the same as mining in the desert of Queensland. It is unbelievably stupid.
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There’s a nicely interesting short post just appeared on the Enviro History blog regarding the loss of the Foxton Loop in the Manawatu River, which was an accidental consequence of wetland drainage, spillway-building to protect farms that’d been created in former swamps, and an eventual flood in 1943 that diverted the river entirely.
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bjchip:
Yes I agree. Psychopaths are vastly more likely to destroy the environment too – not just people.
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If you think such things don’t matter Shunda barunda, you need your head read.
I couldn’t give a rats arse what a government that supports commercial whaling thinks of my country.
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samiuela:
One idea I’ve had for a ‘better structure’ is to have a system of totally externalised personnel operations.
Basically, make is so the HR-department has exclusive responsibility in hiring/firing/promoting/demoting people, from the bottom to the top of the company, so your *operational* superiors (who may feel threatened by you – or whatever) don’t have the independent power to ruin your job or potential for promotion. A fully external HR-company that’s commissioned by the company you work for could do the job too.
Basically, I’m talking about creating the situation where you can always defend yourself, and negotiate, with an impartial authority of which has the final say.
This would promote better meritocracy in a company. Shareholders would be wise to consider that their managers ultimately work for themselves. On some levels they will not represent what is best for the company. They will often want their workmates that they feel competitive with to fail, and as we know too many of them will not play fair if they think they can get away with it.
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Andrew. Used to be called Unions.
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We have seen this a lot lately.
Better to have a true democracy, where the psychopathy of a few cannot overrule the majority.
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Kerry,
I’m talking about a much stronger hand. Unions can’t promote staff.
-also true we have in part a ‘psychopathic culture’. For example what we call ‘social skills’ in a modern professional context is actually just being fake and manipulative – like a psychopath. Maybe this is part of the reason why modern work can be so demoralising? I think it’s true that the modern work place has become unnaturally dehumanised.
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Dangerous chemical recalled but not in NZ
Of course methyl iodide based products are still being sold here in New Zealand. Politicians and ERMA will do their best to ignore the fact that it’s been removed from U.S. shelves, not because it wasn’t making a profit, but because it’s a highly dangerous carcinogen that was initially misclassified…
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Why aren’t you Gals all over Gerry – that ‘uge embarrassment – agree with him?
More like a Garden Party sometimes – very nice but – silence can be construed as agreement, or mute submission?
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Solid Energy’s daft logic exposed by Sir Geoffrey Palmer:
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/solid-energy-and-tobacco-industry.html
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Today, 3 News reported that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright will be undertaking an official investigation into Fracking.
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Nice to see the business of helping the rest of the world to kill itself slowly, painfully and expensively is now booming in NZ.
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There’s an obvious incentive for controversial governments to make life hard for the Ombudsman’s Office, and it makes me wonder if there could be benefit in another layer of abstraction, whereby rather than being entirely funded directly, the Ombudsman’s Office charges the cost of investigations back to the department or other government entity that it’s investigating.
The Ombudsman would then be shielded from direct political interference through manipulation of funding, whilst Ministers and and government entities would also gain an incentive to provoke fewer investigations by doing things correctly the first time around.
Any thoughts? Aside from the trouble with getting such a scheme legislated during the term of a controversial government, have I missed any obvious problems?
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Maori vote excluded
Passing the Search and Surveillance Bill is therefore in breach of parliamentary process because the vote was incorrectly counted…
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@Jackal, where doesn’t it add up?
The vote tally is at the end of the record of the Third Reading. The numbers at least add up as printed. It definitely counts 2 votes for the Maori Party (not 3). I haven’t been following the debate, but a quote (on the same page) definitely states that the Maori Party weren’t “voting at full strength” for some reason.
NZ First also only voted with 6 of its 8 MPs for some reason. If those 3 missing MPs had voted it still would’ve passed 61 to 60, would it not?
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@MikeM
Whether the bill would have passed or not isn’t the point. Whether the vote was counted properly is what my post is concerned with. If there were abstentions, they should have been recorded.
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Not by my reading of the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives. I’m definitely not a process expert, but with a skim it seems section 140(1)(b) states that a party’s votes may be cast for the Ayes or for the Noes or recorded as an abstention, but it also states (c) that the total number of votes cast for each party may include only those members present together with authorised proxy votes.
140(3) seems to clarify that MPs away on official business within certain criteria may be regarded as present, which implies that proxy votes in that scenario don’t need the same level of rigour for proxy authorisation. But presumably if an MP was just on holiday and didn’t bother to go through the proper motions of authorising a proxy vote to be counted when they’re not on the premises, their vote or abstention can’t be recorded. According to 140(1)(c) they’re simply not there and not counted as having done anything.
I’m more than happy to be corrected by someone in the know.
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I don’t think that resolves the issue MikeM. Being that it was a National party MP who voted on behalf of the Maori party who only cast two Maori party votes and the NZ First vote also missed out two votes without stating if these were abstentions or not, that leaves three MP’s who did not have their votes recorded.
You might like to link to any information that makes you believe that perhaps those MP’s were just on holiday (while presumably receiving remuneration) as an MP and therefore their votes were justifiably not submitted? Otherwise your argument is mere speculation.
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Hi @Jackal. I couldn’t say if they were on holiday or not and can’t be bothered getting into that argument. The holiday suggestion was an example of what might have happened and it’s clearly speculation, but I don’t think my explanation is speculation at all. It’s based on reading the rules. Maybe they were away dealing with family issues or drinking under a bridge somewhere for all I know.
As I read them, the standing orders appear to state very clearly that the Ayes, Naes and Abstentions don’t have to add to the total number of MPs, and indeed can only do so if MPs actually put active effort into acknowledging their vote or abstention, either by turning up on the day or by formally telling someone to vote for them by proxy–and there’s an entire process detailed in sections 151 and 152 that describes exactly how this needs to occur. 152(2) specifically states that only 25% of the votes (rounded upwards) are allowed to be proxy votes, incidentally meaning that the Maori Party can only ever have 1 proxy vote between its 3 MPs just as NZ First can only have 2 proxy votes for its 8 MPs, so that’s yet another reason why an MPs vote might not be recorded at all.
My reading of the document is that a party isn’t allowed to officially say someone’s abstained if they haven’t formally indicated that they’re abstaining. There’s also nothing I can see which says that a National Party MP can’t vote on behalf of the Maori Party, although 152(3) states that at least one of the Maori Party members was required to be on the premises for that to happen because the Maori Party has between 2 and 5 MPs.
As I said I’m very happy to be corrected by someone in the know, particularly with reference to the Standing Orders because I’m only skimming them, but none of this looks suspect to me. I think if parties believed there was a realistic chance of winning the vote, they might have put more effort into getting their MPs to show up in the house to vote. But that’s what our representatives do, and we can vote them out if we don’t like it.
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Oh and on the remuneration-without-voting thing that you mentioned, would you stake your argument that there’s something fishy occurring on the premise that it’s extremely unlikely that some MPs are being paid without showing up to vote on every occasion?
I merely think that if the Maori Party’s vote or NZ First’s vote had been somehow misrepresented, we’d be hearing them screaming about back-stabbing murder by now.
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I think you’re failing to see the main point here. A National MP voted for the Maori party, but only gave two votes when the Maori party has three votes. It used to be that an excuse was required when another party was voting by proxy and I’m not even aware that National has been granted the proxy voting rights of the Maori party anyway.
Here is what should have happened: The number of votes cast for each party and the names of the members of a party voting in each category on a split-party vote are recorded in the Journals of the House and in Hansard. That means any votes in the various categories ie abstention, ayes or noes are meant to be published. According to the Standing Orders, abstention votes are meant to be recorded.
So did the Maori party have a member in the house and why wasn’t the vote correctly recorded in the Hansard? You are arguing that a split vote should not be recorded and that a proxy vote for a party does not include all its representatives. Surely you can see why it is important to know how representatives are voting, especially on such important legislation?
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PS It was your contention MikeM that three MP’s votes were not cast/counted because they might have been on holiday etc. In fact that is what you’re basing your argument on for there not being 121 votes cast.
If they were justifiably not present, usually their vote would follow the way the party was voting. If they abstained or chose not to vote with their party, that should be recorded and be available to the public. If a proxy vote is cast where an MP is justifiably not present and/or splits the vote, a reason should be given. That is what the rules say anyway.
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@Jackal, if you think that’s meant to be the process then I’m awesomely keen to see you post a clear reference that state it’s what’s meant to happen instead of just stating it. If you believe that the rules say non-voting members can automatically be counted as abstentions, where do the rules say so? I wouldn’t normally bother asking for a reference, but in this case I’m confused because I’ve found a reference that seems to contradict what you claim.
I don’t know specifically why the three votes weren’t counted and I don’t really care enough to spend my day trying to track people down and find out where they were at the time—I’ll just go with occam’s razor and presume they might have had other things to do unless there’s a clear reason to think otherwise. Maybe you’re exactly right that there’s something fishy with the counting, but shouldn’t you be querying the party representatives as to why they didn’t appear to vote with all their possible members before you start claiming there’s something below board happening? I mean, hell, I’m not “aware” that a National MP has been given proxy voting rights for the Maori Party either, but I’d presume that if they’re doing it and nobody in the house has noisily complained about something that must otherwise look clearly suspect, then it’s very likely they have been asked to handle the proxy voting.
Meanwhile I’ve just quoted you an authoritative reference from the current Standing Orders of the House Of Representatives, including direct section numbers which, to me at least, seem to clearly indicate that a member who doesn’t show up to the premises and who doesn’t explicitly follow the proxy voting process does not get the privilege of having a vote recorded on the official record at all, whether it’s an Aye, a Nae or and Abstention, irrespective of what their proxy representative or party whip’s preference might be.
Missing votes aren’t official abstentions to be counted unless the MP has explicitly indicated directly or through proxy that they’re abstaining. Without that, they’re just MPs who didn’t bother to show for one reason or another.
If there’s an MP around here or someone else who’d know, perhaps they can weigh in and clear up how it works. As I said I’m happy to be corrected on this, but I’d like it to be shown how I’ve misunderstood the authoritative reference that I’m citing.
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MikeM
Now you’re just making up a straw man argument. I never said non-votes should be automatically be counted as abstentions. I said when the vote is split the hansard is meant to record what MP abstained or voted Aye or Nae. If a proxy vote is used, a reason is meant to be given as to why the member/s are not present to vote.
If a party votes against a Bill, as reported in the news, it is reasonable to expect that all MP’s associated with that party voted against the Bill. If the National MP who is meant to cast the proxy votes for a party fails to include all the votes allocated to a party through a general election, then that is a breach of process.
Here is the direct quote again from the Standing Orders of the House Of Representatives:
In my opinion, a non-vote splits a parties voting and a reason for a non-vote is meant to be supplied. If the Hansard was recording these details as it is meant to, we would likely not be having this debate. The public would also know exactly what MP’s supported what legislation. Don’t you think that is important?
What is suspect is that the National MP casting the proxy votes for the Maori party only cast two votes instead of three. There was no reason given as to why one vote was not cast, as is required in the Standing Orders.
Whether the Moari MP’s had other things to do doesn’t mean a National MP who is presumably entitled to cast their proxy votes can ignore that there is three people in the party.
More speculation. If they are not available to give a vote or abstention, a reason is required. If their non-vote or vote as the case may be splits the parties vote, their details are meant to be recorded.
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