Theodore Dalrymple writes in the Spectator of the UK's deceitful reporting of criminal reoffending. He says:

 Nothing could better reveal the hall of mirrors that the British criminal justice system long ago became than the response of Keith Vaz, the chairman of the House of Commons all-party Home Affairs Committee, to very similar news last year. ‘The public,’ he said, ‘must be convinced that community sentences are an effective form of punishment.’

In other words, the problem is not how to make community sentences work, but how to create the misleading public impression that they do. This has for decades been the ruling imperative of that great friend to the British criminal, the Home Office (and now the Ministry of Justice). It struggles might and main not to reduce criminality but to reduce the public’s supposedly neurotic fear of crime, and it does so by sowing confusion — confusion with a roseate glow."

Dalrymple reported that two thirds of young criminals who are electronically tagged, offend or breach the orders under which they are released with tags. Perhaps our figures are not as bad in this area.  Stuff carries criticism of electronic monitoring from another perspective. But we are unlikely ever to know.

Our government approaches recidivism reporting in the same Goebbelian spirit as the UK justice establishement.  For example, though our Police can provide figures for bail offending, Justice in NZ never produce figures for offending by criminals on parole. I asked repeatedly and in different ways. I had a member's bill to require them to produce such data, which was not supported to first reading.

From estimates, If the parole offending figures were known there would be an overwhelming demand for an end to parole. It is fraud to mislead victims into thinking that the courts are delivering justice when they sentence, then to cut the sentences by up to two thirds..

If the government was in trade and therefore subject to the Fair Trading Act penalties for misleading and deceptive conduct, we'd be able to fund new prisons with the penalties on politicians and justice sector officials for breaching the standards of honesty they demand of impose on business people.

Dalrymple is a former prison psychiatrist who has long blown the whistle in this area.

A Chapman Tripp commentary  on a recent Australian case succinctly contrasts the characteristic prescription of Australian legislation with New Zealand's more traditional restraint.

Geof Shirtcliffe notes that dicta in the case means that Australian boards will probably feel they must now vote formally on each resolution. That contrasts with the near universal custom where there is consensus, in which a chairman records an  absence of dissent as unanimous support.

The customary practice is blessed by New Zealand law (though it can be displaced by more rigorous prescription in a constitution) ) because our law was drafted to reflect the ordinary practice of reasonable boards. Papers might show that I am claiming credit due to another, but I think I was responsible for suggesting the particular New Zealand words in this area. I worked closely with the drafters of the original bill (my partners at Chapman Tripp) and presented the NZ Law Society submissions on it.

With some exceptions the 1993 Companies Act reform was not seized as a chance for officials and other zealots to tell businesspeople how they should run their businesses. It was seen as a chance to simplify and to codify without interfering with respectable practice, not an opportunity to peddle passing fashion's pet theories of "best practice" by making them compulsory. .

Sadly, that era is passing. Instead of ensuring practical enforcement of laws against dishonesty, and respecting their party's principles to maximise freedom, National's commercial  law changes are marked by minute prescription. It seems to me that Labour Ministers in relevant areas were more resistant to official zealotry. They left safety valve opt-outs from prescription generally on the basis of informed consent ( treating business decision-makers as not needing the nannying of law intended for consumers).

At 5:15pm  I got back to my office to find colleagues looking at me askance. They showed me the Stuff story, posted at 4:58 pm, of a concerning fire on Great Barrier Island.

At around 4:10 pm this afternoon I'd explained on Jim Mora's Panel my concern about the fire risk on Great Barrier Island. No I did not have prior knowledge of the Stuff story. And I hope this is not the fire I publicly worried about, because there will be no pleasure in "I told you so".

GBI is so much more beautiful than I'd expected.  We've just had a wonderful long weekend there attending Emma Daniell's wedding to Sam Judd.  I was yet again awed by lucky we are to be New Zealanders – with so many places to go where you can be the only people in your own tourist brochure. We made footprints in pristine sand and shared translucent water with virtually no one near.

I was puzzled though by the relative absence of birdsong and a dawn chorus, given that it has no possums, no stoats or Norway rats. I thought they were the chief bird predators? Are there too few bird feeding plants? Do they need more introduced vegetation to support the kind of populations that are now common even in the heart of big cities? Is that the effect of cats without rats to eat?

 But also I was struck by how much will be lost on GBI when a big fire coincides with a drought year. Far too little open country for fire breaks – too many kanuka-girt houses stuck up long drives that could trap residents in furnace tunnels in the wrong winds..

Assuming the current fire is not the big one, go walk the GBI tracks now before the whole island becomes one great gloomy kauri forest again (pending fire). At the moment one can see out from track viewpoints. But there are too few gaps now along some tracks, and the kauri regeneration is much faster than I expected.

A little less knee-jerk greenery, and a bit more human foot-print could be a safer balance. For those who worry about the "sustainability" of mining, go see if you can find degradation (or any trace at all) from the copper mining that went on for years. The Ore Stamper is there, but vegetation is triumphant everywhere else.

The 18 year old charged with murdering Murray Wilkinson outside his Waihi caravan applied for bail again yesterday. Bail was denied but I'm told that his QC indicated he would try again.

 The accused has name suppression so we can’t learn the truth about him but if today’s judges had half the common sense of previous generations’ such an application would be unthinkable. Our courts are pathetic about discouraging wasteful and abusive procedures.  But then they are handicapped by what should be shame, but is probably instead passive recognition that it could be years before the case is tried. They have to at least consider whether the presumption of innocence is compatible with holding an accused for so long.

Senior judges could cut both the delays and these abuses overnight. But instead of taking the initiative they’d rather tacitly resist Parliament and complain about the Ministry’s attempts to bring justice costs under control.

 Judges could at least make it clear that offenders who show their lack of remorse with stupid applications will have that insolence reflected in  the eventual sentence. Lawyers, whose  duty it is to make such applications whatever their personal view of them, could then explain that offensive procedures are only worth the risk for defendants who are confident of being acquitted.

 Trouble is, seeking bail on a murder charge may not seem stupid to the offender, however outrageous it is. Bail and sentencing  law make it rational for bailed offenders to add to their offending. Parliament tinkered last year, and indefensible suppression law is Simon Power’s legacy.

 The accused in Waihi can’t be blamed for expecting courts to be indulgent – he was apparently free to hurt fresh victims on New Year’s Eve because he was out on bail on charges for incidents some weeks earlier and six months ago.

Judges have allowed our system to become so constipated that a six month old charge remained unheard. Even our generation's judges should feel they can’t justify giving bail on a third charge (of murder) but who knows?. Mr Wilkinson may have paid the price for previous indulgence, not the judges.

CBS drew attention on 3 January to previously little noticed research showing the "eco-bulbs" may emit cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation. We are fortunate indeed that our Greens, unlike their co-religionists overseas, have not managed to force a ban on incandescent bulbs which do not emit that radiation.

The research summary says:

"Our study revealed that the response of healthy skin cells to UV emitted from CFL bulbs is consistent with damage from ultraviolet radiation,”

More interesting for me was a passing comment on the effect of a sunscreen element :

  “Skin cell damage was further enhanced when low dosages of TiO2 nanoparticles [titanium dioxide often used in sunscreens] were introduced to the skin cells prior to exposure.” Rafailovich added that incandescent light of the same intensity had no effect on healthy skin cells, with or without the presence of TiO2".

I've long been suspicious that sunscreens cause more harm then they prevent. I think they encourage people to stay too long in the sun, and not to wear covering clothes when they should. I'm not persuaded that they necessarily block the effects that might connect sun exposure to skin caner, even if they block most UV rays. And the advertising for ever stronger screening compounds has lead to exaggerated fear of the sun

I expect to read before too long that the Cancer Society's slip slop slap campaign could be responsible for an epidemic of bad health, by cutting Vitamin D levels with consequent increases in some serious conditions. I did not expect to learn, however, that an ingredient in sunscreen might actually exacerbate damage.  We should know more of this!

I remember my wife Cathy puzzling over the high share price of Telecom years ago (and a little later Telstra) when her customer experience was awful. Telecom kept cranking out profits for its owners while the call centre performance filled a nationwide reservoir of hatred. When the Cunliffe interventions broke the dam, Telecom had no friends.

Telecom directors were astounded by the casual ease with which politicians abandoned them. They thought that years of "hospitality" and friendly contact meant the politicians were largely onside, or at least neutral. But politicians in healthy democracies stay aware of popular feeling. No amount of lobbying will protect a monopoly that has become loathed.

My market lead indicator, Cathy is giving early warning signals on Apple. Her new iPhone 5 would not acquire or hold wi-fi in parts of Asia recently. She is now in a chat group of thousands of very angry iPhone 5 owners. Their similar experiences, including  with their own home wi-fi that continues to work well on other Apple products are generating a wave of discontent. Add to that the arrogant decision to use a new charging and connection plug design that has rendered obsolete the myriad devices built to fit iPad and iPhone connectors, and Apple seems to me to be well overdue a re-rating, irrespective of its product pipeline.

They will get their come-uppance for disrespect to consumers.

Note – for the bozos who made it illegal in NZ to use freedom of speech to exchange views on matters of investment, I do not hold any Apple shares, and have no intention or expectation of changing anyone else's investment intentions with respect to Apple. I just want to have a public record of my view at a time when Apple is the most valuable company in the world, so that in  a short time I can say "I told you so".

The FMA and the MInister of Commerce and the Minister of Justice should say "get lost" to a bunch of unhappy capitalists looking to force the taxpayer to share their losses.

Of course any leader so frank would pay a huge media price for such commonsense, so we will not see it. Instead  Bruce Tichbon and his flock of distraught investors may nourish false hope over Christmas.

Bruce is surely well intentioned. He's had commendable  energy in gathering the shocked investors together so promptly. But the slightest prospect of the FMA being liable to anyone for the RAM (Ross Asset Management ) ponzi scheme should be appalling to all interested in the freedom, vigour and fairness of our economy.

Our whinging law and culture  commonly rescue people from life's lessons. Frequently that is at the cost of others who have much less practical prospect of mitigating the risk. If the FMA was to pay, it will be at the cost of taxpayers, most of whom will probably still be poorer than the RAM investors. And if that risk drives the FMA into building more  "fences at the top of the cliff" they'll be woven of arse protecting red tape that frustrates honest companies and investors, discourages the innovative but does not deter the dishonest (who simply cut through such fences). 

It was not foolish to be a RAM investor. It was only foolish for those who had too many eggs in that basket. David Ross had a track record that many honest and diligent people relied on, to their advantage. Some who lost money at the end had nevertheless taken out far more.

But the returns were so high that they stood to lose much of their money anyway. Doubling one's money in three or four years carries with it the risk of losing most of it, even without fraud. The genius of capitalism is that it lets people choose and experiment  and risk their capital in ways that no authority could ever evaluate or forsee or permit (because most ventures fail). The superiority of capitalism lies in the excess returns of the ventures that succeed, and more than cover the losses.

But health in capitalism requires that losses be left to lie where they fall under the relevant contracts. If they do not, and people can take high returns then transfer losses to other, the essence of capitalism is destroyed.  "Irrational exuberance" becomes rational, and risk taking is unbridled. A capitalism that calls on taxpayers to protect fools from their folly retrospectively loses both its moral claim and the disciplines that make it work.

This is not to say that the state has any excuse for failing to put crooks behind bars.  And it should seek any treasure they've hidden, and take it to compensate their victims. But that is very different from saying the state should compensate victims from taxpayer money, even if if the state has been dilatory. 

In the RAM case I've seen no evidence  that the FMA should be embarassed in any way. From public material they seem to have acted swifty and decisively once properly alerted. And even if that was not the case, no sensible law would make them responsible for well executed fraud, if that is what this proves to have been.

Disclosure – Franks & Ogilvie has clients with RAM investments. There are complications that might need a Court to unravel, but in our opinion, having looked closely at precedents, there is a trivial likelihood of any return on good money thrown after bad in trying to get the government on the hook.

Trying to find a particular plumber using Yellow Pages (and White Pages) this morning reminds me of just how profitable it can be to sell assets at the right time. Yellow Pages will sink to oblivion because it provides terrible service, and because it has been left in the dustbin by Google..

Yellow Page search functions are primitive. Requiring precision for a hit is infuriating nonsense. They may still be hamstrung by a Privacy Commissioner code that effectively bans intuitive searching. But if so, that is their fault.

I pushed back on that code while a member of the Regulations Review Committee in Parliament, in the interests of consumers. But Telecom was too gutless to cooperate with the members on that committee I gee'd up to resist the Privacy Commissioner.  I've seen no sign since that Yellow Pages has used public law resource to get out of the regulatory strait-jacket.

I noted the Canadian pensioners' loss and Telecom's gain this time last year. The comments on that post mentioned otherof other illustrative cases of "family silver" losses avoided, or not avoided as the case may be.

The biggest easily avoidable loss to New Zealanders this year could be the failure to sell down Solid Energy last year. Selling at the peak of a mineral boom is nearly always profitable. Mining boom cycles run for decades. We could have had foreigners sharing half the losses we've now crystallised in Solid Energy.  

 This debacle gets worse.

Behind the NBR paywall is a depressing report that the judge (Mary-Beth Sharpe) had tried to reserve rights to censor Radio New Zealand coverage of the trial.

The Herald has taken the story up, and we are reminded that earlier proceedings were made secret.

The overall impression from what  is public, is of prosecution and defence as a privileged profession colluding with its even more privileged members in the judiciary to shield favoured members in ways that they would not for ordinary people.

Good judges often do, and should,  approach lawyer defendants rigorously. We should know better, but more importantly on the Casear's wife principle, lawyers should accept that the courts will err if necessary  to emphasise that there is no favouritism.

My initial post focussed wrongly on the gender and class issues. This is now a  more serious case which appears to present favouritism from the prosecution, indifference to the victims, and the misuse of the power the Court should never have been given,  to keep it all secret for as long as possible. 

I finished a new novel this morning. The Rough Mechanical: The Man Who Could. I recommend it to students of economics, history and of New Zealand heroes.

It is a curious work – essentially a fictionalised introduction to the heroic period of economics, when Hayek, Kaldor, Keynes, Galbraith and other giants were doing the work that would turn them into 'isms' contending with the older and more malign darling of the intellectuals – Marxism.

 The hero is a New Zealander, the thinly reconstructed William Phillips, definer of the Phillips curve. The book grew on me, becoming more interesting as it got further into the interaction of economists, politicians, officials, military and spooks in the uncertain and dangerous days after WW2, as Stalinist agression ramped up. But it scoots over such vast territory that I was reminded of Classics Illustrated, the comix that helped baby boomers to pretend to having read the world's literary classics.

It is fascinating for another reason. The author is himself a Man Who Could, the polymath next Secretary of APEC in Singapore and until recently Governor of New Zealand's Reserve Bank and a personal friend. Throughout the book I could not put aside astonishment at Alan's virtuosity, in publishing a fictional trailer for the substantive work to follow, a life of Phillips. I'm not sure why he seems to dumb down some stereotypical characters (RAF pilot toffs and crusty mechanics, spooks with eyes set too close together and bad breath, a beautiful East German spy). The emotional tension devices are not subtle (would the East German spy seduce the hero away from his dutiful wife and was she loyal despite Phillips' provocations?). Perhaps it is just the fun of experimenting with spoof. Perhaps it is to masquerade in a genre that disguises the underlying tour of economists. Perhaps it is aimed at young people who need to have Punch and Judy clearly labelled in a setting that is now remote to them.

Whatever the reasons it makes this puzzling, but for those who know Alan, all the more intriguing.