Kiwi Catches up

Kiwipundit does a catch-up
So looking at the same issues in NZ politics

Salient v Victoria University

I agree with Kiwi pundit here - there are very rare that I have much sympathy for someone who sues the media and certainly don’t in the context of VU and Salient. In the context of keeping things simple the general rule of thumb is in favor of the media/freedom of information.
(Basically the university is sueing the university magazine for revealing that the fees were going up).

I am not sue fees going up is good though - this is because I think the universities are quite wasteful - having said that I can accept that it MIGHT be a good idea. I also don’t think it really reduces the damage of the interest free policy - because the real harm done there is not that it makes university cheaper but that it does so in such a stupid manner.

HIV people having sex

We had a court case that basically said that the right to privacy regarding HIV was more important than the right to know you are having sex with a HIV positive person.

The problem here is that condoms regularly break etc so the person having sex with the HIV positive person is taking a risk and that risk is a cost to society as a whole. I seriously doubt it would stop people getting tested since death is a bigger incentive than lack of sex.

Sir Kenneth Keith

One of our Supreme Court justices will be on the international court of justice thereby "increasing the standard of both courts".
but more seriously I agree that a mandatory retirement age is ridiculous having said that I also think that mental sharpness does decrease as you grow older - so it might be natural for us to slowly loose older and more feeble judges to places like the pacific islands and the international court of justice (not that that is necessarily the case with Kenneth Keith).