$15 per hour minimum wage

Trevor Mallard is drafting a bill to lift the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour. Another thing Labour refused to do while in Government. Now if that bill comes out of the ballot at the same time as Roger Douglas' bill to reinstate youth rates, that`ll be interesting.

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Whanau Ora will be for whanau or a non-Maori family

The Māori Party has been granted $1 billion for Whanau Ora, a key policy as mentioned in National’s confidence and supply agreement with the Māori Party.

The Maori Party seeks significant outcomes in whanau ora, through eliminating poverty, advocating for social justice, and advancing Maori social, cultural, economic and community development in the best interests of the nation.

John Key has decided that the best interests of the nation in implementing this policy is to include non-Māori families as well, but implemented based on the Māori way of doing things . The former has infuriated the Māori Party, who wanted a Maori only policy. This was to be the big one.

Whanau Ora is really Maori-flavoured devolution. National has screwed the scrum. If a certain non-Māori family needs Whanau Ora more than a certain Māori family does, under this policy, which will be implemented from July, National thinks they should apply and get the benefits first. The Māori Party doesn’t, and it appears they'll have to lump it in one of their flagship policies.Tariana Turia doesn't want to force the "Maori viewpoint" on other families - and in any case these other families probably don't know what Turia will be referring to when she says "Maori viewpoint".

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Was this a dodgy name suppression order?

I’m no lawyer, but I think that the stated reasons from Judge Grant Fraser to grant permanent name suppression to the famous nameless sicko from Palmerston North, who downloaded about 30,000 pornographic images, are questionable.

Judge Fraser said he granted permanent name suppression to protect the man's family, his mental state, his wife's job and his ability to rehabilitate. I’m wondering if that was actually the case. Because the main stated reason appears to be because none of the offending images were of New Zealanders – or the judge was at least apparently told they weren’t.

Therefore publicity in my view is not required to flush out any potential offenders or to enable members of the community to keep themselves safe from you

But if these images were of New Zealanders, would that mean Fraser would have allowed his name to be published? If so, so much for his argument about the man's family, his mental state, his wife's job and his ability to rehabilitate. If not, so much for his argument to keep the community safe.

Crown prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk disagreed with Judge Fraser that name suppression was needed to protect the man’s family, saying the man’s children were well informed about the offending. He said this name suppression could be seen as protecting a person in a privileged position. Yet he refused to appeal the suppression order, citing among a few things, the fact that he had children, and that the court knew what the consequences of a conviction were.

[redacted after reading the judgement]

The man is undergoing therapy to treat his paraphilia. He didn’t just download 30,000 images – he transferred some to an external hard drive and distributed them through the Internet.

I’m wondering how well Vanderkolk knew the famous nameless man. And I’m wondering if this famous nameless man has seen his GP recently. I hear there has been a recent shortage in Palmerston North.

Like I said, I’m no lawyer, and have not read any court documents on this case, but would be keen to get any comment from lawyers or law students on the stated reasons for suppression as outlined above.

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