If only he really had been

Shorter Nick Griffin: “Being asked questions by the public makes me the victim of a lynch mob – quite unlike people who’ve been beaten up or murdered by gangs of BNP thugs for having the wrong colour skin.”

At least not in Wanganui

Shorter Michael Laws: “If, after enacting a law against something, incidents of that something still happen, the law has failed and should be revoked.  Compare, for example, the drink driving laws, after which nobody ever drank and drove again.”

Also, this seems an appropriate response.

He who controls the present, controls the past

BBC News on Russia’s plans to criminalise ‘false’ histories: “The country sees its victory over Hitler's forces as the greatest moment of the 20th Century. The war is sometimes discussed in the news media as if it were a recent event, not increasingly distant history. Any attempt to tarnish the glory of that triumph is seen as a deliberate attempt to make Russia look bad. Russia’s past haunts its present.”

Small businesses and "fire at will"

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn observes that the Employment Relations Amendment Act – the “fire at will” law that allows small businesses to sack employees within the first 90 days with no process and no reason – comes into force today, and advises, “If you have any sort of choice at all, I suggest not working for a small business.”

This is an obnoxious law, but this is terrible advice on how to respond to it.

Yes, there will be small businesses which abuse their employees by using this law to sack people because they fall sick or complain about discrimination or decline to work overtime, or just for no reason at all.

But many, many small businesses will want nothing to do with this kind of behaviour.  My own employer, Mindscape, is a small business – currently the two directors and me – and I find it inconceivable that we would use this law in an abusive way.  Wellington is a small town: word of abuse would spread almost instantly around our potential employee pool.  We want high-value people, and high-value people won’t waste their time on an employer if that employer has a reputation for screwing people around.  It’s bad, bad advice to suggest that people should choose an EDS or a Datacom over a Mindscape just because we’re covered by the “fire at will” law and the big companies aren’t.

Obviously, different businesses and different locations will be more or less affected by such considerations.  A small manufacturing shop in Auckland employing semi-skilled labour could get away with abuse for a far longer time than a software development shop in Wellington.  (Though it would be interesting to see if an “ERAA Watch”-type Web site a la NoCowboys could gain any traction in warning people about abusive employers.)  Nevertheless, small businesses tend on average to need higher-value employees, and these people often do have a choice of where to work, and will therefore choose an honest employer over one with a track record of abuse.  The mantra of “you don’t shit where you eat” remains an important one for businesses of all sizes.

Small businesses are a lot of fun to work for, much more than big businesses, and with plenty more opportunities for their employees.  I’d hate to see people put off working for great small businesses like Mindscape just because this obnoxious law gives free rein to the bad ones.  Better advice would be, “If you have any sort of choice at all, I suggest not working for an arsehole.”  And that applies no matter what the size of the business.

[Note: I usually don’t bother with this disclaimer because it’s bleedin’ obvious, but since I used the word “we” when talking about Mindscape I should probably make it clear that I am speaking only for myself, not for my employer.]

Election results thoughts

It was a foregone conclusion that National would win the election: the only question was whether they would need a coalition partner and if so who it would be.  The result was the worst possible: ACT.  So, just as the rest of the world is finally discovering how big a disaster Chicago School economics is for all except the most rapacious of plutocrats, here comes an unrepentant Roger Douglas to do to the New Zealand economy what his fellow disciples have already done to the economies of South America, Russia and Iraq.  (When John Key spoke at TechEd, he mentioned that Roger Douglas had said privately that Douglas wanted to see a crisis in New Zealand to shake things up.  To readers of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, this pattern will be chillingly familiar.)

Interesting, though, that National also brought United Future into the coalition, and are still talking to the Maori Party.  We were a bit puzzled at Vic and Jono's election party as to why Key was doing this when National plus ACT alone had a majority, but thought it was probably to give National some wiggle room when ACT's policies are too obviously electoral suicide.  But it may also be symbolic.  National plus ACT got only 49.1% of the popular vote, and have the seats only because NZ First didn't reach the 5% threshold.  National plus ACT plus United Future, however, brings the coalition to 50% or just over of the party vote, allowing Key to claim the fig-leaf of a true popular majority rather than a mere plurality.

Finally, it seems ridiculous that NZ First with 4.2% of the vote got no seats, while ACT with 3.7% of the vote got 5 seats.  Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased to see the corrupt, racist Winston Peters finally kicked out of NZ politics (at least for now... I guess nobody thought Roger Douglas would be back either); but there's clearly something wrong here.  I assume the 5% threshold was meant to ensure that parties had to have a reasonable base of support before they got into Parliament, but in practice it hasn't worked that way -- it just favours minority parties with entrenched electorate MPs -- see ACT, Peter Dunne and Jim Anderton.  Some rethinking needed here, surely.

Presented without comment

In future, whenever someone asks me why I moved to New Zealand, this is the article I shall point to.

So not going back

BBC News: "The whole population and every UK visitor should be added to the national DNA database, a senior judge has said... Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said... 'I think there is a case for a compulsory database.'"

I've no wish to live in the UK again, but I would have liked to be able to visit my family again some day without being pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered, thank you very much.

One law

BBC News: "[Scooter] Libby's lawyers ... argue that Libby was not able to present a full defence because classified information could not be discussed in court."

Oh the irony.

War, death and toy imports

The Daily Mail, of all places, has a great set of maps with countries and regions sized according to economic or demographic criteria rather than physical size. Nothing particularly new, but the juxtaposition of the "war and death" map to the "toy imports" map is truly dramatic.

(And yes, true to its Private Eye caricature, the Mail can't resist having as one of its maps... house prices!)

Hell George Bush advert

Brilliant advertising: "A complaint made against a Hell Pizza billboard featuring US president George Bush has been partially upheld by the Advertising Standards Complaints Board (ASCB). The advertisement featured Mr Bush and the words 'Hell. Too good for some evil bastards'." Scroll down for the picture.

The ad agency exploit it for all they're worth: "Regarding the 'bastard' complaints, Cinderella said use of the term was widespread in New Zealand and could sometimes even be a compliment. 'We would point the board to the seminal work. . . Bastards I Have Met was a wide-ranging almost academic study of the different types of bastard that one could encounter throughout New Zealand. Of course George Bush had not yet come to prominence when Crump was writing, but had he been in office at the time, and if Barry had met him, I feel sure he would have qualified for his own chapter, headed 'Evil Bastard'. As it stands, George W could certainly fit within the genus of bastard identified as a 'Bad bastard' (bastardus skullduggerus), or arguably for a subgroup of this particular type of bastard -- the 'real bad bastard' -- although that is not for us to say.'"