Judith Collins

Yet another Simon Power screw up has been revealed, and once again it will have to be Judith Collins who has to repair the damage that FIGJAM rushed through in his final months.

The courts will continue to operate with the current legal aid system for the timebeing despite the Court of Appeal ruling it unlawful.

The Criminal Bar Association (CBA) launched court proceedings after the Government’s cost-saving shake-up of the legal aid system, which resulted in legal aid lawyers getting a 10 per cent pay cut.

The CBA lost a High Court case but took it to the Court of Appeal, which today held that the Legal Services Commissioner, who is responsible for granting legal aid, was unable to function independently of the Government.  Read more »

UPDATE: Judge not dud after all

Another dud judge has caused some outrage. I’m not normally someone who would side with a union, much less the Corrections Association and Bevan Hanlon, however Judge Philippa Sinclair has really shown just how pathetic some of our judges are:

A dangerous high-security prisoner who killed a Corrections officer has been sentenced for assaulting two more but will spend no extra time in prison, a penalty the prison guards’ union calls disgraceful.

Latu Kepu was already serving a jail sentence for the manslaughter of prison guard Jason Palmer when he attacked two other guards in separate incidents last October.  Read more »

Most people know my feelings about politicians and social media. Either be good at it or go home. Trevor Mallard is just cringe-worthy, and then you have Judith Collins who has actually grasped the concept of Twitter.

It is no use senior advisors whinging about activities of politicians on Twitter when paid party consultants attend caucus and implore MPs to “engage” with voters via Twitter. Bitching about their screw ups or sledging or even poor messaging is pointless when you are the ones who set the cat amongst the pigeons in the first place.

This post at The Telegraph properly explains Twitter and politicians.

I shudder to think what would have happened if we had been armed with Twitter. Politically, the micro-blogging site has become a weapon of mass destruction. Where Alastair Campbell complained about the drumbeat of the 24-hour news channels, Mr Cameron must contend with the minute-by-minute verdict of social media, where his performances and policies are scrutinised, judged and discarded instantly.  Read more »

Further to my earlier post about the Young Nat remit, a reader emails:

Hi Cam,

Picking up on your blog on this.  Your readers may be interested to know how successful remits are at National Party conferences.

Last year, a remit from the Young Nats (if I recall correctly) asked that the requirement for employers to collect and pass on union fees be removed from the law.  The remit passed at the Northern Regional Conference and then passed UNANIMOUSLY on the plenary floor of the annual conference here in Auckland.

Where has that got to?  Is Simon Bridges doing anything about that?  Read more »

Gareth Hughes needs to take lesson in social media from Judith Collins.

As a well-travelled Green MP who is resides in Wellington, you would think that he would be alert to his carbon footprint and the evils of climate change by swimming then walking to Christchurch.

24 hours after protesting against NZ’s fourth largest export worth $2bn each year, oil, you think he would be careful about travel and the stench of hypocrisy.  Read more »

Judith Collins has been shredding Twitter yesterday.

Check out these sledges.

Further to the table posted by David Farrar yesterday on all the parties responses regarding their position on MMP.

Finally someone’s done the numbers on the table:  The majority of Parliament appears to support Judith Collins.

David Farrar has a useful table showing just how fragmented the political parties are on changes to MMP.

Judith Collins has done the right thing in ignoring the recommendations and all the other political parties who are having a big sook and a cry only have themselves to blame when you look at the facts.

15 May 2013_Party Positions on MMP by David Farrar

Read more »

Let me explain why it really is a bad idea to have Twitter if you are an MP.  The media love Twitter and have embraced it fully in reporting of politics and here is why. They are the prime beneficiaries of MP’s tweeting.

Despite consistently advising MP’s not to get on Twitter they are ignoring such sage counsel and are continuing to do so.  So once again I will  share my experience in social media over the years and analyse  how and why MP’s should not use Twitter unless it enhances their reputation among media and with it a very small section of the voting public who follow Twitter.  Twitter use is making MP’s look even more clueless about the problems and needs of their actual target voters than most already are and in Asenati Lole-Taylor’s case, that was what I previously thought an impossible achievement.

I do not spend much time on Twitter and only have links to new posts on the blog.  I will jump on to sledge people who need and deserve it, like David Fisher and formerly Trevor Mallard but it is a distraction to my day I can do without. If for any reason I do go on, it is as a free social media lesson in how people with anything to lose in life such as their job as an MP and perks that go with it, need to be very careful about using it. Regular users of Twitter are just hopelessly addicted to it, bored with their job or life in some way and need to stop.

Then there are political journalists who show their bias and inner circles by endlessly communicating with MP’s they are meant to be reporting neutrally on.  The smarter political journalists though use twitter to bait MP’s into making fools of themselves by obtaining stories written from tips and gossip off it and present that to their editor now as news reporting.  None of these stories are ones enhancing the public perception of an MP. The vast majority of the public do not follow Twitter at all and only see something on it in the paper or online when an MP has made a dick of themselves.  Read more »