Daily review 11/06/2019

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, June 11th, 2019 - 34 comments
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Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

34 comments on “Daily review 11/06/2019 ”

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  1. Robert Guyton 1
    11 June 2019 at 5:51 pm

    Auckland Council Declares Climate Change Emergency

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/113274464/auckland-council-mulls-declaring-climate-change-emergency

    This adds more weight to my efforts to get my council, Environment Southland, to do the same thing. If you haven't already, you could email the chairman, Nicol Horrell, and offer your encouragement to follow suite. We vote on the matter on the 3rd of July, but the workshop/debate on the issue takes place this Thursday, so don't delay, send off the quick, pithy email now, to: Nicol.Horrell@es.govt.nz

    Emails are already arriving at Nicol's end, I know, and every further encouragement helps more.

    Thanks all!

    Robert Guyton

    Councillor

    Southland Regional Council (Environment Southland)

    Proud contributor to The Standard smiley

    • mickysavage 1.1
      11 June 2019 at 7:11 pm

      Good luck Robert. I’m pleased to advise that the People’s republic of Waitakere passed a resolution a few weeks ago and I was there today when Auckland Council did the same.

    • BM 1.2
      11 June 2019 at 7:17 pm

      What a load of typical left-wing virtue signalling bullshit.
      You, chardonnay socialists, give me the screaming shits.

  2. WeTheBleeple 2
    11 June 2019 at 6:16 pm

    While our health system has struggled with lack of financing, some aspects of our public health are top notch.

    I got blood tests yesterday early afternoon. Walk in, take a number, sit, 20 mins later, walk out. Today I can view the results online, and my Doctors notes concerning them.

    Outstanding!

    Except for the high cholesterol…



    Great photo BTW.

  3. Incognito 3
    11 June 2019 at 7:07 pm

    What happened with the National Caucus meeting today? Was there another Simon stand-up show? Where was the media pack? Have they all gone to sleep?

    Come on, guys! I bought some cheese rolls and I even found the cheese grater but this is turning into an anti-climax of cheesy proportions and I’m starting to feel cheesed off.

  4. Muttonbird 4
    11 June 2019 at 7:26 pm

    Wow. A further smack down for the hapless national Party. Backing up the 56% who thought Bridges was wrong to hack and release confidential and sensitive budget information, just 20% believe the Finance Minister should offer his resignation.

    This has been a core to the Nats' strategy to damage the government and it is a complete fail.

    They need to move on because the further they take this the more damage they are doing to themselves.

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/06/poll-shows-whether-kiwis-think-grant-robertson-should-resign-over-budget-2019-drama.html

    • Peter 4.1
      11 June 2019 at 7:49 pm

      20% think Robertson should resign? Amazing. I would've thought that he could cure cancer and magic up a 6 lane highway from North Cape to Bluff and have it finished by next week and have more than 20% think he should resign.

    • Ed1 4.2
      11 June 2019 at 8:25 pm

      I was surprised to hear on the news (Radio NZ) that there is still discussion of a purported accusation by Grant Robertson that National had hacked information. There was an article and discussion on The Standard that analysed the various statements and showed that this was not true.

      I look at it this way. The first we knew of anything was Simon Bridges releasing some information. At that time he refused to say where it came from, but implied that he may have more; there was predictable speculation that it had been leaked by Treasury staff or someone else; that is was a deliberate sting to identify a leaker, or that someone had hacked a system. Nobody knew who had given Bridges the information or how they had got it. Robertson asked National not to release any more information, and about that time also said that Treasury had identified that their system may have been hacked – again no knowledge of by who, or implication that it may be anyone in particular but they had referred it to police.

      GCSB became involved and determined that the system had been entered through a parliamentary services computer, presumably by someone authorised, and that there were 2000 entries over 20 hours. Still no implication of anyone in particular. Note that National were connected to the leak however by having the information, and deciding to publish it.

      Then Simon Bridges cam clean that it was a staffer in a National party office, which implies that he had been protesting about a non-existent implication of something that was, known only to National, true!

      That leaves whether it was a hack or not. Simple search, says Simon, but then we learn that it took at least 20 hours and 2000 specific searches (not using Google), which to most people looked and smelled like hacking. This was not a simple download – it was hard work over quite some time – plenty of time to think through the ethics and to have advised Parliamentary Services or Treasury.

      So was it a hack? Most people would think so – it was using a fault to access information that they knew they should not have access to, spending a lot of time and effort getting little bits at a time. The tree was not cut with a single stroke, it took 2000 hacks to get as much as they could or wanted to get. It was obtaining information without authorisation – to most New Zealanders that is a hack – but what's in a name?

      The real decision of concern was Bridge's decision to publish the information to embarrass the government / public sector. He did not need to do that, but could have used the time to prepare for his speech on the budget. I don't know why he is not being called on the false accusation that the government accused National of doing something illegal (they didn't), and is not being criticised for releasing material that he said should not have been made public. Double standards and woolly thinking are being used to obfuscate and divert attention from the nastiness of Bridge's decision to publish. Bridges needs to be called on throwing out false accusations to divert from his own shameful behaviour.

      • Muttonbird 4.2.1
        11 June 2019 at 8:32 pm

        Great comment. Lots of good points there, particularly:

        This was not a simple download – it was hard work over quite some time – plenty of time to think through the ethics and to have advised Parliamentary Services or Treasury.

        Their motivation is laid bare here. And I fear ethics and this version of the National Party are complete strangers.

      • mickysavage 4.2.2
        11 June 2019 at 8:39 pm

        Thanks Ed would like to use this as a post.

        • veutoviper 4.2.2.1
          12 June 2019 at 9:33 am

          A really good summary by Ed1, thank you.

          Mickysavage, could I suggest that if you are going to use it as a post, that you also read and check Ed1's timeline (and wording) against the transcript of Questions 1 and 2 from yesterday's Question Time – AND question 4, Amy Adams to Grant Robertson.

          https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20190611_20190611_04

          I am sure you will realise why I have suggested reading the transcripts rather than just watching the videos, particularly re Adams' attempts to "lead" Robertson in the latter segment – well parried by both Trevor Mallard as the Speaker doing his homework beforehand (presumably by being advised by his legal advisers in the Clerk's office) and Robertson being very careful with his responses to Adams. Her frustration was obvious, LOL.

      • AB 4.2.3
        11 June 2019 at 9:25 pm

        "Bridges needs to be called on throwing out false accusations to divert from his own shameful behaviour."

        Yep – a "hack" is finding a way around a security system, an "exploit" is discovering and then making the most of a security flaw. Different levels of skill and sophistication involved – but absolutely no difference in the intent of the perpetrator.

        Bridges' is play acting – putting on a show of righteous indignation at an accusation that Robertson never actually made. Moreover, we now know that it's an accusation, that had Robertson actually made it, would have been justified.

        This is where not having any principles on which to base a policy framework lands you – sh*t-stirring, and scandal-mongering. Why couldn't National be true to their ideology and come out with an alternative budget? Instead of a 'well-being' budget they could call it an 'every man for himself' budget.

      • Anne 4.2.4
        11 June 2019 at 10:53 pm

        Bridges needs to be called on throwing out false accusations to divert from his own shameful behaviour.

        My thoughts too. The media know it is National who is playing dirty but they are skirting around the edges and repeating Bridges' demonstrably false premises. It's a case of the pack muddying the waters in order to maintain a sense of intrigue involving supposed government malpractice.

        The baton is in the hands of the government and it is Ardern/Peters/Shaw who should be leading the charge against Bridges in particular and with no holds barred.

        Thanks Ed1. Your summary is superior to anything the MSM journos have produced thus far.

        • veutoviper 4.2.4.1
          12 June 2019 at 9:49 am

          I second most of your good comment, Anne, particularly re the quality of Ed 1's comment. (See also my reply to mickysavage above).

          However, I actually think that the approach now being taken by Ardern, Peters etc is to hold back to let the SSC inquiry to go its course as an independent inquiry – and rightly so. The last thing they need is to be accused of interfering or influencing the inquiry – and IMO Bridges would have no compunction with doing so. As it is, I think he is hanging himself with his own petard – his RNZ National interview this morning was dreadful!

          • Anne 4.2.4.1.1
            12 June 2019 at 10:48 am

            Yes I agree vv that the best course of action now is to wait for the outcome of the inquiry and then… hit National with everything they've got. It seems the only language the current bunch of National-ites understand.

            My concern was the immediate aftermath of Bridges' leaks when Ardern and Robertson went into almost instant silent mode. That was a bad decision imo. It gave National the opportunity to present their 'lack of response' as hiding the truth and to follow up with claims of lying. Matthew Hooton was still at it on RNZ this morning.

            I've been in and around the Labour Party for a long time and I have observed their inclination to be a little too risk averse at times. Both Robertson and Ardern should have fronted up Wednesday and given reporters a time-line of phone calls etc. exactly as they had occurred up until the time they were interviewed. Then they could have shut up on the grounds there is an inquiry etc. It would have been harder for National to misrepresent those events had they done so.

            But time will tell what really happened.

      • Muttonbird 4.2.5
        12 June 2019 at 6:33 am

        Another point to add to your penultimate para, Ed. One which most of us have been thinking but concisely expressed here. From the unlikely source, Fran O:

        In my view much of what is at stake boils down to simple semantics over Makhlouf's use of the word "hack" and his use of that term again when he said there had been "deliberate and systematic" hacking of the Treasury website.

        Paywalled, and no doubt Fran O goes on to blame the whole thing on Labour. But as I type I'm amused by the irony that this is a snippet taken from a confidential article…

  5. joe90 5
    11 June 2019 at 8:23 pm

    Surprise surprise, the corruption prosecutions that resulted in Lula's imprisonment and his ineligibility to run were cooked up by the right.

    On Sunday evening, The Intercept published a series of incendiary articles and documents purporting to expose massive problems of unethical behavior and political motives in Brazil’s Operation Car Wash—a five-year investigation into corruption at state oil company Petrobras, which resulted in the conviction of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Based on “a massive archive of previously undisclosed materials,” The Intercept is reporting that judge Sérgio Moro, hailed in Brazil, on the Time 100 list, and in a fawning 60 Minutes segment in 2017 as a paragon of courageous civic virtue, secretly aided the prosecution in Lula’s case, an egregious ethical violation in a justice system that depends upon the impartiality of the presiding magistrate. Moro has since been appointed Justice Minister in the administration of Jair Bolsonaro, a radical right-winger who won the presidential election in 2018 after Lula was barred from running.

    https://newrepublic.com/article/154150/conspiracy-discredit-brazils-left

    https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-archive-operation-car-wash/

    Part 2

    Part 3

  6. weston 6
    11 June 2019 at 9:51 pm

    Fair bit of to do recently with the desire of a waste disposal company to create a new landfill in the dome valley near warkworth .The usual arguments for and against .I think the site is not suitable because it isnt next to a railway line .Surely its time we got serious in dealing with our waste and created large recycling/processing / facilities alongside existing rail links in strategic locations across the country .Its always being said that rail cant compete with road transport imo giving rail a profitable advantage by handing the responsibility of all waste transport to it could provide the bread and butter for a more equitable share of business sorely needed in this industry .Im not a lover of slogans but something along the lines of Sorting Our Shit Out could work

    • WeTheBleeple 6.1
      12 June 2019 at 8:20 am

      That's really good thinking Weston. A small regular income stream makes any business more resilient.