Not much to look forward to you might think at the end of a year that started off on the wrong foot with the calamitous second Christchurch earthquake. But we need to pay attention. This could be a transition year.
The celebratory haze from the Rugby World Cup cleared to reveal the world’s missing trillions circling like vultures still looking for a home.
Not much to look forward to you might think at the end of a year that started off on the wrong foot with the calamitous second Christchurch earthquake.
To have two Royal Commissions of Inquiry (the Canterbury earthquakes and the Pike River Mine disaster) running in any one year is extraordinary and their hearings are making the public more aware of the perils of self regulation.
They follow on from finance company failures and leaky homes, two issues continuing to feature strongly in court cases this year.
The civil court lists seemed dominated by banks and receivers seeking summary judgment to recover monies lost through property development schemes. Criminal cases against former directors of failed finance companies hit their straps.
The tax man had wins in the tax avoidance area in the orthopaedic surgeons’ case and, just out, Alesco test case. Civil liberties law was strengthened with a Supreme Court “offensive behaviour” decision.
From Parliament we saw the implementation of legislation to ‘fix’ the financial system (or, more accurately, attempt to restore investor confidence).
A Standing Orders Committee review included a serious attempt to grapple with the executive’s overuse of urgency in its legislative programme. The foreshore and seabed replacement bill (just) avoided a rocky landing, though time may tell.
Ditto for the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) bill. The bill to shake up and reform the criminal justice system finally bulldozed its way to assent status.
The Government’s legislative response to an inconvenient Supreme Court decision on the unlawful Police use of anticipatory video surveillance in the Urewera military training camps case, was not crowned with glory (resulting in a significant back down when faced with heavy duty opposition from constitutional experts).
On the government administration side, the message that public service employees must do more for less increased in volume and proposed mergers of different state sector organizations got underway.
It may be too early to see the results of an Auditor-General’s discussion paper calling for more “honest appraisals” in state sector annual reports, but the recording in many of this year’s reports of the state sector’s contributions to the Canterbury earthquakes relief effort, did not go unnoticed.
Bullying in schools featured in an Ombudsman’s report critical of the school’s weak response to a serious social problem that is unlikely to diminish while the most popular TV reality shows involve bullying and humiliating participants. Lawyers working at the coal face already battered by legal aid ‘reforms’ have further cuts to look forward to with reviews (including of the Family Court and public prosecution services) aimed at further cost cutting.
Reports and discussion papers continued to pour out of the Law Commission and its just released report on the new media reminds us that the internet and the social media are “transforming societies and challenging the fundamentals of commerce, politics, media and the law”.
We need to pay attention. This could be a transition year.
