Attorney-General Chris Finlayson has told Parliament that disenfranchising all prisoners cannot be justified in a free and democratic society. So why does it look like he's going to vote for this to become our law?
Looks like some oik at Crown Law has been at it again.
This is a shameless attempt to attract media coverage for a relatively obscure blogsite. Please print my story - it's about a gay Labour MP.
It would be nice if more people read the Pundit website. I suspect one of the major reasons why they don't is that not a huge number of people have heard of us. (Another problem concievably could be that those who have heard of us just don't like what we write here, but I'm going to hastily turn my face away from that possibility and hum a happy tune.)
Why should we bother trying to catch up to Australia when we can just become Australia?
On the back of a UMR poll indicating that only a minority of respondents believe it is even worth debating a union between New Zealand and Australia, let alone actually support such a step occurring, Sir Don McKinnon went on TVNZ's Q+A programme and declared this development to be
Our liberty cannot be guarded but by freedom of the press. But does a free press really have to suck so bad?
I've had some unkind things to say about Mayor Michael Laws. Last week I fulminated about what appears to be his attempt to extract vengance against the local newspaper for an editorial stance he disapproves of.
It's the job of MPs to push the policies they believe in. It would be constitutionally outrageous if they didn't.
Dr Michael Bassett occasionally ventures into cyberspace to vent his spleen on the decline of civilization and the
Just what is there in Whanganui's water that makes people there act like morons?
I don't think anyone would disagree that Michael Laws has a rather healthy ego, or that he takes his job as mayor of Whanganui exceptionally seriously.
Who says impending destruction can't have a good soundtrack?
Sunday morning, I listened to National Radio's wall-to-wall coverage of the impending Tsunami for a couple of hours.
Probably not. But Phil Heatley's decision to fall on his sword over two bottles of wine is an awfully extreme act of contrition.
Let's assume that, contra some fevered speculation on the part of Labour's online cheer squad, the whole story about Phil Heatley has come out, and there isn't any nasty skeleton lurking in a d
The question and process for the 2011 referendum on MMP have been announced. It's all good.
I am aware that three posts in a week on electoral law matters may be bordering on overkill. But this last topic probably is the most important of the lot, so I want to say something about it.
The Government has announced what it plans to do with the law on electoral financing. Not all that much, actually.
For anyone who doesn't know, my specialist area of academic research is electoral law, with a particular interest in the law that regulates how electoral contests are financed.
