Invercargill's eight mayoral candidates debate
To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following:
See terms of use.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
31 minutes ago
- NZ Herald
The importance of clear laws shown in impressive evidence from Italy
If New Zealand's laws were as ambiguous, we would be worse off by $20 billion – or about $10,000 per household – every year. What family would not welcome avoiding that? What is 'poorly drafted' law? The researchers used 10 indicators of writing that likely lacks clarity. It assesses each of over 75,000 Italian laws. One measure is sentence length. According to experts, sentences with more than 25 words are likely to be unclear. The authors found that 85% of the millions of sentences in all of this law exceeded 25 words. That might seem staggering for those who do not read law books. Authors of children's books might think it was absurd. Lawyers are likely less surprised, but still disturbed. Greater clarity in drafting should be easy to fix. So why isn't it? The paper's answer lies in law-making imperatives. These include haste, compromise, personal career aspirations and short-term expediency. Ambiguity conceals likely outcomes. It shields blame and defuses critics' attempts to pinpoint a proposed law's problems. Even lawyers cannot be sure how courts will interpret unclear laws. Nor can judges in a lower court be sure about how a higher court will interpret them. This uncertainty creates a cascade of problems throughout the legal system. The authors examined 620,000 Italian Supreme Court judgments between 2004 and 2017. They found 32% of them reversed a decision of a lower court solely on legal grounds The rule of law is a precondition for national prosperity. The law should be clear and accessible. When it is not clear to judges, it cannot be clear to those who must obey it. The paper next assessed the effects on over 700,000 Italian firms of reversed court decisions. It looked, for example, at changes in their investment spending and output growth. This aspect was another exhaustive, path-breaking achievement. It found the adverse effects were significant. The estimated permanent 5% drop in Italian national income encapsulates that. The paper's approach is ingenious, but too complex to explain here. Are New Zealand's laws better drafted in these respects? It would be good to know, because low productivity is holding New Zealanders back. It should be easy to improve drafting quality. The bigger the gains, the more it should be a priority. To better inform this article, I used AI to count the word lengths of sentences in two of New Zealand's acts. From an Italian perspective, the results were encouraging. The proportion of sentences in the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 that exceeded 25 words was 'only' 70%. For the Resource Management Act 1991, it was 53%. Even so, the implication is that most New Zealanders would not find the Resource Management Act (RMA) law clear and accessible. Parliament could be more insistent about improving clarity. The Government's Regulatory Standards Bill would increase this discipline. One part requires the Government to tell Parliament if a bill is unclear and hard to understand – and explain why. Small comfort, but better than nothing. Of course, there is more to good law than just clear drafting. Its content surely matters even more. Prominent symptoms of content problems include unaffordable housing, and infrastructure delays and inadequacies. However, much more is hidden or accepted as 'part of the woodwork'. Content problems have many sources. Public pressure on governments to 'do something' about the latest adverse headline is one source. Appeasing that pressure can be the easiest option. More mundane are the relentless daily calls on ministers to regulate or spend for this or that partisan or public-spirited cause. Such calls often fail to consider the costs to others. The Italian paper acknowledges that content also matters. It cites literature that shows property rights and institutional quality are key determinants of economic prosperity. The RMA is deficient in both respects. It offends almost everyone. The Regulatory Standards Bill also recognises the importance of protecting private property. Ministers must tell Parliament of any grounds for concern but Parliament can ignore this information at will and continues to be supreme lawmaker. (Most public opposition to this bill ignores this limiting aspect.) Greater transparency about these matters could help inform voters. Governments would spend and regulate more judiciously if more voters rewarded them for doing so. This exhaustive Italian research helps make the potential gains more concrete.
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
Jeffrey Epstein grand jury records to remain sealed, judge rules
By Luc Cohen , Reuters Financier Jeffrey Epstein was indicted on sex trafficking charges. Photo: AFP PHOTO / NEW YORK STATE SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY/HANDOUT A United States judge has denied the Justice Department's bid to unseal records from the grand jury that indicted the late financier Jeffrey Epstein on sex trafficking charges. Manhattan-based US District Judge Richard Berman's decision came as President Donald Trump tries to quell discontent from his conservative base of supporters over his administration's handling of the case. Trump, a Republican, had promised to make public Epstein-related files if reelected and accused Democrats of covering up the truth. But in July, the Justice Department declined to release any more material from its investigation of the case and said a previously touted Epstein client list did not exist, angering Trump's supporters. Evidence seen and heard by grand juries, which operate behind closed doors to prevent interference in criminal investigations, cannot be released without a judge's approval. Trump in July instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek court approval for the release of grand jury material from Epstein's case. The grand jury that indicted Epstein heard from just one witness, an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Justice Department said in a court filing in July. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. He had pleaded not guilty. His death in jail and his friendships with the wealthy and powerful sparked conspiracy theories that other prominent people were involved in his alleged crimes and that he was murdered. The New York City chief medical examiner determined that Epstein's death was a suicide by hanging. On 11 August, a different Manhattan-based judge, Paul Engelmayer, denied a similar request by the Justice Department to unseal grand jury testimony and exhibits from the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's longtime girlfriend. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence following her 2021 conviction for recruiting underage girls for Epstein to abuse. Engelmayer wrote that the public would not learn anything new from the release of materials from Maxwell's grand jury because much of the evidence was made public at her monthlong trial four years ago. The grand jury testimony contained no evidence of others besides Epstein and Maxwell who had sexual contact with minors, Engelmayer wrote. Maxwell had pleaded not guilty. After losing an appeal, she has asked the US Supreme Court to review her case. In July, a Florida judge rejected the administration's request to unseal grand jury records from federal investigations there into Epstein in 2005 and 2007. Epstein served a 13-month sentence after pleading guilty in 2008 to a state-level prostitution charge as part of a deal now widely regarded as too lenient. - Reuters
RNZ News
3 hours ago
- RNZ News
NZ Police chief acknowledges impact of criminal deportees on the Pacific
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers, right, at the Fiji Police Force headquarters in Suva. 2 May 2025 Photo: Fiji Police Force New Zealand's police commissioner says he understands the potential impact the country's criminal deportees have on smaller Pacific Island nations. Richard Chambers' comments on Pacific Waves come as the region's police bosses gathered for the annual Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police conference in Waitangi. The meeting, which is closed to media, began on Wednesday. Chambers said a range of issues were on the agenda, including transnational organised crime and the training of police forces. Inspector Riki Whiu, of Northland police, leads, from right, Secretary General of Interpol Valdecy Urquiza, Vanuatu Police Commissioner Kalshem Bongran and Northern Mariana Islands Police Commissioner Anthony Macaranas during the pōwhiri. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf Across the Pacific, the prevalence of methamphetamine and its role in driving social, criminal and health crises have thrust the problem of organised crime into the spotlight. Chambers said New Zealand had offered support to its fellow Pacific nations to combat transnational organised crime, in particular around the narcotics trade. However, the country's own transnational crime advisory group also identified the country's deportation policies as a "significant contributor to the rise of organised crime in the Pacific". In 2022, a research report showed that New Zealand returned 400 criminal deportees to Pacific nations between 2013 and 2018. The report from the Lowy Institute also said criminal deportees from New Zealand, as well as Australia and the US, were a significant contributor to transnational crime in the Pacific. Te Waaka Popata-Henare, of the Treaty Grounds cultural group Te Pito Whenua, leads the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police to Te Whare Rūnanga for a formal welcome. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf When Chambers was asked about the issue and whether New Zealand's criminal deportation policy undermined work against organised crime across the region, he said it had not been raised with him directly. "The criminal networks that we are dealing with, in particular those such as the cartels out of South America, the CJNG [cartels] and Sinaloa cartels, who really do control a lot of the cocaine and also methamphetamine trades, also parts of Asia with the Triads," Chambers said. "I know that the Pacific commissioners that I work with are very, very focused on what we can do to combat and disrupt a lot of that activity at source, in both Asia and South America. So that's where our focus has been, and that's what the commissioners have been asking me for in terms of support." He said he understood the difficulties law enforcement in Pacific nations faced regarding criminal deportees, as New Zealand faced similar challenges under Australia's deportation policy. In New Zealand, the country's returned nationals from Australia are known as 501 deportations, named after the section of the Australian Migration Act which permits their deportation due to criminal convictions. These individuals have often spent the majority of their lives in Australia and have no family or ties to New Zealand but are forced to return due to Australia's immigration laws. New Zealand's authorities have tracked how these deportees - who number in the hundreds - have contributed significantly to the country's increasingly sophisticated and established organised crime networks over the past decade. Chambers said that because police dealt with the real impacts of Australia's 501 law, he could relate to what his Pacific counterparts faced. "I understand from the New Zealand perspective [which is] the impact that New Zealand nationals returning to our country have on New Zealand, and the reality is, they're offending, they're re-offending. "I suspect it's no different from our Pacific colleagues in their own countries. And it may be something that we can talk about." This week's conference was scheduled to finish on Friday. Speakers due to appear included Interpol secretary-general Valdecy Urquiza and Pacific Islands Forum secretary-general Baron Waqa.
