The Nation 23 September

  TRANSCRIPTS AVAILABLE ON www.frontpage.co.nz --- also all video plus Adam Feeley, Colin James, Bill Ralston and Susan Wood. 

COLLINS REJECTS POWER REFORMS

Justice Minister Judith Collins is starting to overturn some of the policy reforms made by her predecessor, Simon Power.

Speaking this weekend on TV3’s “The Nation”, Ms Collins said she was not in favour of proceeding with an inquisitorial trial system for sex offences and cases involving children.

Mr Power told “the Nation” last year he had hoped to have that introduced before he left Parliament.

But Ms Collins said she believed you couldn’t take a common law system like our adversarial system, and then take on and put on parts of a civil system or an inquisitorial system.

“You either have one or the other, otherwise great injustices will occur.”

And she said she was snot convinced that the current investigation into minimum pricing for alcohol move to introducing it.

Mr Power had ordered that study.

Alcohol is our legal drug, our legal social drug<” she said.

“We use it all the way through society. 

“But it's important to understand that actually the vast majority of New Zealanders are quite happy to have a glass of wine.”

And she also rejected two proposals from victims’ rights advocates that defendants be compelled to give evidence and that juries such as in the recent Scott Guy murder case not have evidence suppressed.

“If for instance the jury had known about the appalling attacks on those little calves, I doubt whether any jury would say well actually I can now look at that man and give him a fair hearing,” she said. 

“I think that would be very hard, and I think the judge made the right decision.

“ It's very hard on people, but we have to have a system that actually says it is better for a guilty person – of course I'm not speaking about him (MacDonald) in particular – a guilty person to go free than for an innocent person to be wrongly convicted and imprisoned.”

But she was in favour of having a review of TV coverage of courts.

“I'm not comfortable with the sensationalisation of a few moments,” she said.

“You know we saw for instance in that case where cameras were absolutely trained not only on the accused, but also on his wife, on the widow of Scott Guy, that it was sensationalised to the extent that it was almost like reality television. 

“And I don’t think that does justice any good.” 

However she was coy when asked about her own political ambitions.

“I didn’t come in here (Parliament) to eat my lunch,” she said.

DEVALUING DOLLAR WOULD DROP WAGES --- BUNKUM SAYS PETERS

Former Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash believes the New Zealand dollar is overvalued.

Speaking this weekend on TV3’s “The Nation” Dr Brash said that was s hurting exporters and those who compete with imports. 

“But  getting the New Zealand dollar down would actually have the effect of reducing the real wages of New Zealand workers,” he said.

“That’s how it works. 

“It makes us more competitive by reducing real wages.”

Dr Brash said that the Bank could intervene in the exchange market or it could cut interest rates and that would lead to higher inflation.

NZ First Leader --- also on the programme – said Dr Brash was talking “absolute bunkum”.

But Labour Finance spokesperson David Parker said that if the Bank moved a little bit further away from the primacy of inflation did not mean “you're somehow going to give way on inflation.”

He said that was a false dichotomy.

“I'm not saying we should ignore inflation, no one's saying that. 

“I'm just saying we shouldn’t give primacy to inflation targeting over other important aspects in management of the economy. 

“Other countries aren’t. 

“We're facing competitive devaluation abroad and we ignore it at our peril.”

But Dr Brash said New Zealand was the first central bank to introduce inflation targeting and now 23 countries had followed us.

“David Parker and Winston Peters both want to reduce the real wages of New Zealanders, because that’s what devaluation means.”

ENDS

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