See Murray McCully’s summary of the problem for those who want to hold Labour to its petard. The Electoral Commission has not released its reasoning for allowing the EPMU to register to spend $120k in the election despite the EPMU’s intimate connections with the Labour party.

Young Labour demonstrators outside the National Party conference yesterday maintained the party’s now tradtional expectation that it will not be required to comply with their own law. They were distributing photocopied $100 notes with slogans supporting the EFA. The notes and their placards against National omitted the required authorisation statement, as is their custom.

Of course if someone was looking for fun they’d get some from a complaint against people who breach the law they support.

But I hope they keep it up. People defending the indefensible EFA  are doing more damage to themselves than anything the "authorities" are likely to do.

What do you think of the House of Lords decision upholding the UK Serious Fraud Office decision to drop investigations into Al Yamamah and the bribery of influential Saudis, because of warnings that prosecutions would cut Saudi/UK cooperation on terrorism?

Here’s a short summary from the Independent.

The Economist says the case has made very bad law.

I could not predict how our courts would deal with such a conflict between realpolitik and legal idealism.

Wellington’s Affordable Arts Show opening is a vast cocktail party. The art keeps conversationalists circulating,  wine, juice and beer appear when the need arises and the platters of delicious nibbles do not run out.

For an art philistine like me, size is a protection against over-enthusiasm. I find half a dozen things I’d love to have on the wall in the first 100 metres of display. An hour later, second time around, they’ve faded and I’m jaded, down objectively to one or two pieces in the whole show. Then I have to negotiate with Cathy.

The Show is unlikely to have quite the phenomenonal impact that WOW had on Nelson, but  Affordable Arts gets more nationally significant every year.

We came across Nelson friends, and assumed they were there as patrons till they asked if we’d seen Peter’s work. I’ve known him for 20 years without any idea of his art passion. We then admired his work.

It was great to see at the gala some of the hard-working team who created  this successful show. They’ve put a lot into it. Francie Russell (with Bill Brien) and her daughter Carla and  Chris Parkin insisted we become supporters some years ago.

I watched Trust Chairman Gerry Morris acknowledging to  Prime TV that the idea was pinched from Australia, but in Wellington it has truly taken off. It is now  deeply a part of Wellington’s arts’ pre-eminence.

Nothing comes without cost. A local gallery owner told me that some buyers use up their year’s art  budget at the show instead of at galleries. On the other hand it awakens some who’ve never been to galleries to the pleasure of  art.

The catering at Affordable Art was so good it overshadowed the appeal of a farewell dinner afterwards at The Flying Burrito Brothers. Full credit to them though for having a room controller on background music volume. To be able to talk without shouting is an all too rare pleasure.

I’ve never met Owen Glenn, but I’ve felt strong sympathy for him ever since that infamous day when the PM repayed his generosity to Labour by shunning him at the launch of his Auckland University business school endowment.

I’d have been tempted then to decide that New Zealanders were simply too ungracious to be worth helping.

And I’d be revisiting the thing again today. If I’d just endowed a university level business school and one of its professors published the kind of impressionistic tripe essayed by Nigel Haworth in today’s Herald, I’d want my name dissociated from the school.

Haworth attacks the National policy for a 90 day probation period for new employees. In effect it exempts the first three months of employment from the law that stops employers and employees from agreeing to to a trial. The law obliges employers to prove dismissal cause before saying "this is not going to work".

Haworth sets out a string of non sequiturs seemingly untroubled by the normal academic need for a research base. It is essentially the case heard from unions who need not care (and do not care) about the unpromising would-be employee. The union acts for those who have jobs. No one acts for the kid who desperately needs an employer to take a risk on him or her.

Try this for academic rigour:

"Of course, employers cannot arbitrarily dismiss someone. A process is required that respects both parties’ interests. This is simply a matter of balance and fairness."

Here’s his only mention (and dismissal) of the near universal concern expressed by business people about unfair ‘unfair dismissal’ law:

"If you ask a business how it feels about compliance requirements, it is unlikely to respond positively. What is not clear is the objective and comparative impact of, for example, annual employment compliance costs of around $400 per full-time employee in firms with up to 19 staff (a maximum of 0.23 per cent of turnover)."

An academic worthy of a business school’s brand would have at least acknowledged that compliance cost estimates do not measure the cost of not hiring people for fear of becoming entangled in lawsuits you can not win (because of the cost). Nor do they take into account the  losses from people simply deciding they can not afford the risks of expanding or being an employer at all. 

Prof Haworth deals with correlations between low economic growth rates, high youth unemployment and labour law rigidity like this:

"First, there is no obvious correlation between such flexibility and improved economic performance. If there were, the years of the ECA would, presumably, have been bonanza years for the economy. "

He says he has three answers, but the other two are simply re-runs of his statements against the argument that most of the countries we compare ourselves with already have probationary periods.

Owen Glenn might not be the only one feeling uneasy about the Business School. The other Auckland business school professors have had their brands devalued.

Tickets are available from Murray Gibb  murraygibb@xtra.co.nz  Ph 475 4023  or 027 491 6956

I spoke to our enterprising National Press Club a week ago. I say enterprising because on checking their members’ blurb a couple of days before speaking I found it was charmingly billed as a campaign launch. I’d discussed lunch with them, not launch.

As a member said with a wink – easy mistake. In the result lunch was good and the audience appreciative.

In Parliament Phil Goff would launch the same law and order policy as many times as he needed, at around six month intervals. Some of them never actually started, but the launches did everything he ever intended.

The National Press Club name galls some of our active media people, because the members tend to be at the phasing down periods of their careers, if indeed they’ve been press people. Our Press Club does not shy from controversy.

Around the world, Press Clubs are prestigious. John Key recently used a Press Club address to launch the National Party policy on the size of the public service. US Presidential races commonly end with a Press Club summing up. So we need a Press Club. All power to Peter Isaac and his colleagues who’ve supplied.

Our Press Club may be a bit different, but the familiar faces were discerning, experienced, appraising.

My official launch will be on Wednesday 6 August at the Paramount Theatre in Courtenay Place.

If you have an interest in politics, an open mind (i.e not tribally left) and $20 –  you’re invited.

Bill English will do the honours – firing the starter’s gun. And I’ll answer the question – "why would Stephen want to do this?"

This is not a safe seat. I’m not of the fashionable age, gender or colour for a safe list position. So why stand here, for National?

I’ll also give you a taste of how the campaign is going – because it is well underway. The EFA may make it seem not, but campaigning is very much underway.

For those who suspect that will not amount to $20 entertainment, the price includes an appealing critically acclaimed 2007 film. Catharine (my wife) came home full of enthusiasm after checking it out.  The film "4"   is set to Vivaldi’s "The Four Seasons".

For tickets contact murraygibb@xtra.co.nz. Murray Gibb’s phone number is 04 475 4023 or 027 491 6956.

I presented Select Committee submissions on the internet gambling provisions of the Gambling Amendment Bill.

Originally instructed by a Christchurch company which had a couple of dozen people developing software and providing services to offshore web gambling companies, by the time we got to the committee the client had given up in disgust. Meetings with the Minister and officials were a waste of time.

Peter Dunne offered support but the clients saw no sign of it in the end. Rick Barker, the relevant Minister looked to be putty in the hands of his officials.I wonder whether Winston Peters’ horse racing affiliations trumped all in this area.

Here is today’s report of how the clients are  faring since they exported themselves, their incomes and their initiative.

With another Chapman Tripp lawyer I presented the arguments to the Select Committee anyway. We’d drafted provisions for a regulatory regime to supervise (and tax) local providers of internet gambling services. The proposal was for their licences to allow them to offer internationally, but not to NZ punters. Even that was of no interest to officials.

We submitted to the Select Committee with the client’s pemission but no payment, out of concern that the current law and DIA attitudes are giving New Zealand the worst combination of outcomes. 

New Zealanders are free to gamble on the internet. International promoters are free to offer odds on NZ events. Being outside our laws, there is no harm-minimisation, no integrity assurance for our punters,  and no revenue to New Zealand on the New Zealand events.

The law forbids New Zealanders from offering those services to New Zealanders (unless the TAB and NZ Racing choose to do it). They do not so choose. So all those gambling profits flow out of New Zealand.

Over two years ago the UK ended its prohibitions and licensed operators are free to offer what they like, where they like, provided they submit to honesty audits and pay UK taxes. Internet gambling is respectable and booming.

The US is still counter-attacking, but Australia is now host to major internet gambling operators. You may have heard of the odds Centrebet offers on things like the NZ elections.

So by our own law we confine ourselves to being permanently the dumb punters, mulcted for the profit of foreigners, with no prospect of any offsetting profit or tax to New Zealand, and without even the capacity to know what the smart operators are up to..

The latest Economist gives waspish attention to the influence of  "Nudge" and it’s authors on current UK Tory policy. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein are also said to be Obama’s favourite economist and legal thinker respectively.

It is hard to think that book has actually been read by the author of the Economist’s concluding words:

"Mr Cameron has talked moralistically and hyperbolically about Britain’s “broken society”, which he says is riven by welfare dependency, violence and family breakdown. By so doing he may come to seem both unappealingly gloomy and—unless he comes up with credible ways to mend the alleged tears—impotent. He does not, to be fair, claim that “social norms” and the rest can fix it all. But the Tories’ talk of nudge-nudge risks looking like a wink-wink admission that there is nothing they can do."

Nudging does not purport to be a substitute for coercion where coercion is needed. It is much more a prescription for influence where coercion is often urged, but opt-out freedom should be preserved.

A far more interesting summary of the ideaological shift in Britain at the moment, seen as a cross party convergence, is in the Spectator.

Fraser Nelson sees signs of the kind of consensus between UK Labour and Tory thinking that Clinton engineered when he adopted much of Newt Gingrich’s policy in criminal justice and welfare.

Bad news for those who like the idea that we merit the highest paid Council management group in the country. Better news for those who were worried by Wellington City management seeming to cost 43% more than the next highest city’s management, as calclulated in my post on Tuesday, from Sunday Star Times figures.

Here’s the actual position from WCC Chief Executive Garry Poole:

"Thank you for your email and the opportunity to clarify the issue.

The information in the Sunday Star Times article was incorrect and the Council will be seeking a correction from the newspaper.

It appears that Larry Mitchell, who provided the analysis on which the article was based, has misinterpreted or misread the figures from our 2006/07 Annual Report.

On page 153 of our Annual Report it states that for the purposes of related party disclosures, key management includes "Directors (Councillors and the Mayor), the CEO and all members of the Management Board". That figure comes to $4.670m.  However, it appears Mr Mitchell has incorrectly used this figure for the remuneration of only the Management Board.  I have attached page 153 for your reference.

The remuneration paid to the Councillors was $1.431m; the Chief Executive $355,000; and Management Board $2.884m.

Please also note that the Council operates a flat management structure, comprising the CEO and Directors. Some local authorities operate more tiered management board structures and the figures provided may therefore only include the remuneration of the top tier. In the absence of details on the structure of the Management Board of each Council, direct comparisons are difficult.

As at 30 June 2007 Wellington City Council’s Management Board comprised the CEO and 14 Directors.  In comparison Auckland City Council has a six-strong management team (including the CEO).

I am concerned by this misreporting which gives readers of the Sunday Star Times the wrong impression of remuneration of senior management at Wellington City Council.

We are not aware of Mr Mitchell nor the reporter who wrote the article, Garry Sheeran, contacting us for information or clarification prior to the article being published."

The Police Association’s policy wish list did not include reform to protect the victim’s right to seeing a guilty person pay the price for crime, from this court-invented remedy for police misconduct.

The NY Times reports on moves at Supreme Court level to limit this rule in the US, home of its most extreme version.

The mechanism subordinates the public interest in seeing justice done, to our interest in deterring police misconduct. I’ve not come across any analysis to show that the Court’s exclusion power is the only, or the most efficient way, to discourage such misconduct.

For example, an alternative approach might give the Courts explicit power to follow up evidence of misconduct in a separate process.  There may be comparative evidence from around the world that would give a steer on these issues.