Goddam it … my commitment to red letter law really has come back to bite me on the ass.

"Sustainable band lineups include four cool people (Ramones)"

Only if one of the cool people is regularly changed out for another cool person with the same name ...

Yes - and named here:

Shout out to Officers D, M, O and N and the Director of Police Legal Services though. It is people like this who will drive positive change.

Yes - sorry - should have footnoted!

"Oh, sure ... all THOSE apples turned out to be bad. But THESE new apples pulled out of the same barrel will be fine!"

Can't just say "now we've got rid of the bad guys everything will be fine." Putting an Inspector General over the top of an organisation with a fundamentally rotten culture will do ... what?

From RNZ report ... he's toast, isn't he?

Yep … too political to fail …

Yep. Any MP can be kicked out (it's just that electorate MPs can run in any subsequent by-election if they want).

So nice, also, to see a student rep saying "the corporatisation of Universities is a bad thing" rather than "now we pay for University, it ought to treat us as proper customers".

Note that the test is whether "the [MP] concerned has acted in a way that has distorted" proportionality ... so the battle now is whether any change to independent status in teh House (which distorts proportionality) is because of the MP's actions, or because of what is being done to the MP.

If the MP allows the party expulsion to go unchallenged, the MP makes it easier for the leaders to claim the MPs actions led to their ceasing to be an MP for the party ... "Look! The Party's executive found this to be the case under the party constitution!! It's not just me that says so!!!"

Instead, the Party seems to be relying on this general power ... claiming (I assume) that the MPs have failed to "work to support Te Pāti Māori kaupapa and tikanga" as cl 3.1(a) requires. Which raises interesting interpretative issues - can the National Council trump the disputes process like this?

But it looks like this hasn't been followed/used - not least because it's the "Electorate Council" that is meant to hear these and (if necessary) kick them up to a "Disputes and Disciplinary Committee" ... which doesn't seem to be what has happened in this case?