National and Act have just announced their agreement to implement the 3 strikes law.

Agreement on the policy, which will be incorporated into the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill, was announced by the Prime Minister John Key, ACT Leader Rodney Hide and Police and Corrections Minister Judith Collins today.

The new regime will uphold the Government’s election pledge to remove eligibility for parole for the worst repeat violent offenders, and incorporate significant aspects of ACT’s three-strikes policy.

Under the regime, an offender will receive a standard sentence and warning for the first serious offence.  For the second offence they will get a jail term (in most cases) with no parole and a further warning.  On conviction for their third serious offence, the offender will receive the maximum penalty in prison for that offence with no parole.

Good, time for us to put some people behind bars for a very long time.

In the revised Bill each strike will be based on an offender receiving a conviction for a qualifying offence. In the Bill as introduced, the threshold was a sentence of five years or more for a qualifying offence.

On their third strike offenders will get the maximum sentence for the offence rather than a life sentence with a minimum period of imprisonment of 25 years as originally proposed.

As a general rule, the list of qualifying offences comprises all the major violence and sexual offences with a maximum penalty of seven years’ prison or more.

The really interesting thing is that it was “Crusher” Collins at the press conference announcing this law and she is going to be the Minister implementing it. Normally this is the purview of the Minister of Justice, but Simon “FIGJAM” Power must have annoyed too many people to be trusted with this key piece of legislation. At least we know that “Crusher” will deliver, everything she has promised so far has manifested itself under her guiding hand, this law will be no different.

This is also a significant policy win for ACT and Rodney Hide can justifiably be proud of the impact his party is having on the government. The response from Labour will be interesting. Phil Goff would privately support this, but could he carry his caucus to supporting it. I seriously doubt he can do that.

Batter up I say.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Cactus Kate has a post on the failed leadership coup mounted by Roger Douglas. I say Roger Douglas because I scarcely can believe that Heather Roy would have the gumption to mount a horse let alone a coup. John Boscawen was the third plotter but didn’t have the stones to go through with it.

Cactus is right when she says that the only thing worse than a leadership coup in a small party is a failed leadership coup. Especially so when you only need to get three out of five. So on that basis the three of them are utter failures.

Audrey Young got nearly everything right, except the part about John Key saving Rodney’s arse. My understanding is that Rodney had stared them all down and Boscawen caved when he realised that without Rodney who has Epsom for as long as he wants it he wouldn’t be able to dip his snout in the trough of public funds. Key was informed after the fact.

So, what to do now?

Well traitors are traitors and there is only one solution. Death. I don’t mean physical death, I mean political death. The three of them are List MPs and the party could quite easily give them all the boot. That won’t quite work so my pick is that they ditch Roger “Cotton Hill” Douglas. Like Cotton Hill, Sir Roger didn’t have the shins for a shin dig with Rodney. Right now Sir Roger Douglas is a malignant cancer on the party he founded, he acts and carries on like a muddled old fool reminiscing about the battles of days long past as he pisses in his adult diapers. Cancers need to be cut out and so ACT needs a radical Roger-dectomy.

As for the others they should humbly beg forgiveness from Rodney and hope that the Czars of the party who control the money don’t decide that a little slide down the list rankings next time might be a fitting punishment.

There is also the little matter of who welshed to the media, my pick is it was Garrett who would have been pickled better than Kim Chee this past week. He should get 50 lashes on the cock with a wet shoelace for blabbing.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Rodney Hide is applying the blow torch to Nick Smiths nuts, such as they are.

18894 (2009). Hon Rodney Hide to the Minister for Climate Change Issues

Will he ask NIWA to release the full data on which NIWAs official time series of the mean annual temperature over New Zealand from 1853 to 2008 is based, together with full documentation of any adjustments that have been made to the data to produce the result; if not, why not?

Has he received my open letter dated 27 November 2009 and will he be replying; if so, when?

18892 (2009). Hon Rodney Hide to the Minister for Climate Change Issues

Has he read the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition paper of 25 November 2009 “Are we feeling warmer yet” tabled in Parliament on 26 November 2009; if so, what are his conclusions; if not, why not?

18891 (2009). Hon Rodney Hide to the Minister for Climate Change Issues

What is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimate of the world’s temperature change over the past one hundred years, and how does this change compare to NIWA’s estimate of the change in temperature in New Zealand over the past one hundred years?

18890 (2009). Hon Rodney Hide to the Minister for Climate Change Issues

Has he read the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition paper of 25 November 2009 “Are we feeling warmer yet” tabled in Parliament on 26 November 2009; if so, what are his conclusions; if not, why not?

18889 (2009). Hon Rodney Hide to the Minister for Climate Change Issues

Does he accept as true the graph in Figure 7 on NIWA’s website that shows mean annual temperature over New Zealand from 1853 to 2008 inclusive with a plotted linear trend of 0.92°C/100 years; if so, why?

These are valid questions that need real answers as the rest of the world retreats rather fast from the now discredited Global Warming theories. Nick Smith needs to front these questions or he needs to resign.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Rodney Hide has done what Nick Smith has failed to do and ask for ALL the details of the data at NIWA so we can see if they are cheating us or not. Why is it up to the only honest politician to get the scientists to come clean on why data needs to be manipulated at all, which data was manipulated and the exact reasons why it was?

These are all valid reasons, especially no that we have an ETS system that will cripple our economy if maintained. If the science is bogus then the ETS and associated bullshit that goes with it be tossed out and then the prosecutions can begin for the greatest fraud attempted to committed on the global population in the history of mankind.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Hone Harawira has ticked off someone who ticked him off via email and in a  spectacular way. Now I am in no way justifying Hone’s actions but the pure politics of this are simple.

Mr Mikaere, who runs a consulting company, emailed Mr Harawira a two sentence message: “Gotta ask the question eh? who’s paying for Hilda?”

Mr Harawira wrote back starting his email; “Gee Buddy, do you believe that white man bullshit too do you?

“White motherfucker have been raping our lands and ripping us off for centuries and all of a sudden you want me to play along with their puritanical bullshit.”

Mr Harawira then went on to say how much time and energy he put into fighting for Maori and what a big role his wife Hilda played in that.

“And quite frankly I don’t give a shit what you or anyone else thinks about it. OK?”

That made Mr Mikaere angry and he wrote back again.

“… you’re no better than that wanker Rodney Hide and the white mofos you complain about,” Mr Mikaere wrote, referring to Mr Hide’s actions in taking his partner on an overseas ministerial trip despite the Prime Minister John Key’s direction against the practice.

“And get off your moral high horse while you’re at it – nobody forced you to be an MP.”

Here is what will happen. Nothing. There is not one thing anyone can do about Hone Harawira, he is an electorate MP and all the bros up north will be hanging with the gang signs saying “good on ya bro”. That is the barefaced, unadulterated politics of the situation and all the huffing and puffing by people on their high horses will not change that situation one single bit.

Actually it is quite refreshing to see an MP speak their mind. I kind of like his take no prisoners attitude. I think Hone should get Politician of the Week for his refreshing honesty. Can we please have some more honesty in our politics.

Rodney Hide gets runner up because he stated what most of us have been thinking that the Bill and John show aren’t actually doing anything. But Rodney only gets runner up because he didn’t use the words Mofo, mother-fucker, wanker or shit in his speech.

Popularity: unranked [?]