If Key … as the sole Minister responsible for the GCSB … has had unfettered access to virtually all digital communications in and around Parliament, is there anyone else beginning to wonder exactly what all that wonderful ‘teflon’ he’s been so fortunate with these last five years ….is really made of?
What I’d like to see is MSM (especially tv news) coming up with some sort of system diagram of the apparent information & misinformation/disinformation flows around this whole mess. I’m having trouble keeping track of all the pathways and players now. Maybe that’s their defensive strategy đ
Gonna go walk the dog and see if that helps make it any clearer when I get back.
But Key is not winning because he’s got the goods on us, he’s winning because we are sad losers.
We are already intimidated by his class rule.
He says lets spy on everyone because they could be a terrorist, we say nah please let’s have an independent authority to decide what terrorism is.
Key and his class are the terrorists and we will abolish them and the need for them to spy on us.
“He says lets spy on everyone because they could be a terrorist,”
OR
“He says lets spy on a small number of people because there is prima facie evidence they could be terrorists (which has always happened) because the duty of the Government is to safeguard the welfare of its citizens”
I am sure most New Zealanders are reassured by an ability to spy. And if the Government is going to spy it should be done efficiently. I see the main purpose of the Bill as to tidy up the spying business after the pigs ear legislation left by Labour in 2003 – a deliberate pig’s ear.
Governments have always spied to prevent us against threats. They should do it efficiently backed by efficient and clear laws.
The problem with spying is that by definition it is secret. It should be highly regulated but we need to rely on strong institutions. It can hardly be controlled by a committee with R Norman as a member.
At the end of the day everything in NZ has democratic oversight – the Government can be thrown out by the people.
srylands so we can rely on a conman and a liar
sryland the suckhole
democracy is under attack by the very people who would have us believing they are the defenders.
Key turning down free armoured vehicles from Australia in Afghanistan that cost 3 soldiers lives key is a murdering lying thief!
srylands you are part of the problem blindly following the most corrupt leader this country has ever had.
Go to cult victim at large (facebook)
It should be highly regulated but we need to rely on strong institutions.
Rules a John Key led government out then, the whole story, from back before the dotcom raid, through to now, has been one of shit oversight followed by incompetent lackluster reaction to failures.
Key can’t escape questions over what his chief of staff, Wayne Eagleson, and his own department, DPMC, knew about the information being handed over.
The acknowledgment by DPMC chief executive Andrew Kibblewhite last night that he had known for a month that emails between Vance and Dunne had been handed over almost beggars belief. So too does his explanation that the prime minister was not informed till yesterday morning.
That appears to have left Key high and dry after a torrid week in the House where he was forced to conduct an almost forensic examination of contact between his office and Parliamentary Service.
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The involvement of Eagleson is also murky.
His intervention to ensure Parliamentary Service handed over the phone and email records of Government ministers was clearly interpreted down the line as a directive that the inquiry should get whatever it required.
The guy is simply useless at this stuff, because he doesn’t seem to care. If you trust him to oversee even more power, you are an idiot.
Yours is exactly the sort of antidemocratic thinking that leads to spy agencies working against the democratic government. If R Norman were PM, or on a regulatory committee and they felt unable to comply with his legal instructions, they should all bloody well resign. Instead, what do they do? They hang around lying and continue working for Washington. And yours is the sort of treasonous thinking that justifies this, sorryhands.
The electricity monopsony policy just got rubbished in the media by the academic pushed as the original inspiration, got a weak cartoon about that too?
Tricledrown, what is this about the Aussie offer of free armoured vehicles, when was this made?
I do know in 2010 we rejected MRAPs because they were too heavy and unstable. We could not get the newer lighter vehicle, since they were in short supply. In 2011 eleven LAV’s are sent over. Thereafter it was a mix of LAV’s and armoured Hummers.
[lprent: It is annoying and something to do with something getting around the anti-dup logic. Drat thought I had it fixed after I boosted the times and queue sizes. I clean them out as I see them. ]
yes key was offered heavily armoured vehicles for free by Australia designed to protect agaist IED’s as opposed to our regularly armed hummvee,s and Lav,s which aren,t protected from IED’s
The danger in the actions of Assange, Manning and Snowden is that they are each operating from within institutions established in a democratic society. But they have made unilateral decisions about the most fundamental matters of government, without any of the obligations and democratic controls that come with legitimate political authority.
What are these “obligations” and “democratic controls” of which he speaks?
Bit more recent than 2010. I’ll put a large quote in of the testimony and previous attempts to find people killed as a result of the wikileaks dox:
Retired Brigadier General Robert Carr, who served as the chief of the Information Review Task Force (IRTF) that responded to information published by WikiLeaks at the request of then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, took the stand. Carr was asked by military prosecutor, Maj. Ashden Fein, if anyone was actually harmed.
Carr said, âAs a result of the Afghan logs, I only know of one individualâ who was killed. That âAfghan national had a relationship with the US government, and the Taliban came out publicly and said they killed him as a result of him being associated with the information in those logs.â
Maj. Thomas Hurley of the defense stood up and objected. He asked if this person is even in the information that Manning was convicted of releasing.
To this, Lind asked, âIs what youâre testifying to tied to the disclosures?â Carr answered the Taliban killed him and then tied him to the disclosures. The name was not in there.
âIt was a terrorist act on behalf of the Taliban threatening all others out there,â Carr added. The name was not in the disclosures.
The government was trying to hold Manning responsible for using the âwar logsâ as propaganda to justify killing someone, but the judge said at the end of the open session that she would disregard all testimony on the Taliban killing someone who was not named in the disclosures.
At another point in the proceedings, Carr was asked by Hurley if there was ever any report that anyone in the âwar logsâ was ever killed. There were 900 names in the disclosed reports, but Carr said that âmany of the names in there were people already deadâ and spanned a long period of time.
âWhat I donât have is a specific example of somebody tying this to this to this and he died as a result of it other than the one individual I talked about earlier,â Carr stated. In other words, nobody in Afghanistan died as a result of the disclosure of military incident reports to WikiLeaks by Manning.
There apparently were no human intelligence (HUMINT) sources or informants listed in the âwar logs,â according to Carr, but there were names of people that had âcooperative relationshipsâ with US personnel. At the time their names were entered into a report, none were HUMINT source but later some were developed into HUMINT sources.
The significance of this testimony is that Manningâand WikiLeaksâwere accused of having blood on their hands after the release of the âAfghanistan War Logs.â
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a news conference at the Pentagon, on July 29, 2010, âMr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.â
The Associated Press reported in August that the Taliban was âscouring the tens of thousands of leaked documents mostly raw military intelligence reports for names of Afghans who sided with the US and NATO against the insurgency.â Then-Representative Jane Harman said the âleak amounted to handing the Taliban an âenemies list.ââ Rep. Rush Holt suggested âdefectors from the Taliban who were interrogated and then releasedâ could very well be âin danger of assassination by other insurgents.â
By October 17, 2010, however, Gates reported there hadnât been a âsingle case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak.â Days before, then-Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell told press, âWe have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the WikiLeaks documents.â
But, the comments by US government officials had their intended impact. The comments undermined the release by putting the focus on individuals allegedly at risk instead of what they showed about the war in Afghanistan that was not previously known. The comments etched into the minds of Americans the idea that innocent people had died as a result of the disclosure of the war logs.
Fear-mongering overshadowed the revelation that an assassination squad, Task Force 373, was operating in Afghanistan. It kept classified lists of enemies. The squad had gone on a mission on June 17, 2007, to target âprominent al Qaeda functionary Abu Laith al-Libi.â The squad staked out a âKoran school where he was believed to be located for several days.â An attack was ordered. The squad ended up killing seven children with five American rockets. Al-Libi was not killed.
A link would have been fine, preferably to something a bit more neutral, but in any case all that seems to boil down to is that they can’t prove for sure one way or the other while implying at the same time that the Taliban are such fine upstanding guys that they would never dream of using that information in such a way… Although they do seem to be killing people not on the list and attributing it to the list anyway – that suggests to me they probably don’t need any more help or excuses to murder people than they already have. But hey, lets put that into perspective because America bombed a Qu’ran school. To that I say yes, that’s a terrible atrocity, but to include it here does nothing except to try and make another bunch of murderous thugs who also kill children for wanting to go to school look less evil, hence making your source look highly dubious and slanted – as are you.
There is no implication that the Taliban are fine upstanding guys at all Pop. That’s just more of the strawman horsehit that you specialise in.
Are you disputing the quotes from the court case because they were published on Firedoglake? That would be ad-hom would it not?
The fact is that within days of the leaks, the state was saying they would be used to kill informants and that that wikileaks was reckless with regard to informants. During the court case the prosecution tried the same line on and it was shot down in flames.
And no, including it doesn’t ‘try to make the other side look less evil’, it just points out that the state was in fact hyping things up from a position of something well shy of the moral high ground itself.
“And no, including it doesnât âtry to make the other side look less evilâ, it just points out that the state was in fact hyping things up from a position of something well shy of the moral high ground itself.”
And you have the temerity to accuse ME of strawmanning! America’s war crimes are completely irrelevant to discussion of someone else’s war crimes. A war crime is a war crime and each must be examined individually. The subject at hand is did the Taliban use that information to murder people. Moral high ground has very little to do with it except to say “X is bad, but ‘Murika” and thereby deflect.
Yes Pop, I do accuse you of stawman arguments. You said people were implying the Taliban were good guys, when no one was doing that.
And the point is that the US was arguing that the leaks would lead to people being killed. the US’s concern about people being being killed is in fact relevant to how seriously we should that concern, so it’s not a strawman at all.
And whether or not the Taliban said they might go after people has no bearing on claims that people were actually killed. The US knows who was named in the leaks, and couldn’t find any who had been killed. Not one. That has a higher credence to me than a piece of Taliban propaganda, YMMV.
So the only ‘consequences’ for wikileaks actions that you’ve been able to find is some taliban chest beating.
No, I said they were trying to make the US look worse (funny how the US are bombing schools but no mention of the little girls getting shot in the head for wanting to go to school), which tends to unnecissarily dilute the criminal behaviour of the Taliban.
The most pathetic part of your argument is the refusal to acknowledge that even if no one has been killed it doesn’t mean it couldn’t have easily gone the other way or that someone will be yet killed as a direct consequence. Oooh, there haven’t been any house fires for a while, obviously we don’t need fire engines. Your logic is deeply flawed. There is a reason why we welcomed those Afghani translators into our country – because the Taliban would have likely targeted them and their families. If you cannot see why handing them a list might be not such a good idea, you must have an ethical sense even more warped than the Taliban’s.
Also funny how you are treating a US military/government source as gospel when it suits. That seems very contrary to the norm around here.
Me: You said people were implying the Taliban were good guys, when no one was doing that.
You:
No, I said they were trying to make the US look worse (funny how the US are bombing schools but no mention of the little girls getting shot in the head for wanting to go to school), which tends to unnecissarily dilute the criminal behaviour of the Taliban.
What you said: while implying at the same time that the Taliban are such fine upstanding guys that they would never dream of using that information in such a way⌠Although they do seem to be killing people not on the list and attributing it to the list anyway â that suggests to me they probably donât need any more help or excuses to murder people than they already have.
The fact is that all of that is a strawman. no one said the Taliban are good guys, no one implied it. All that is said is that the release did not cost lives as has been alleged. Possibly because, contra the US’s claims, wikileaks and the people they worked with redacted the names of informants. Possibly because much of what was released wasn’t all that secret from people in Afghanistan. Possibly because the taliban have bigger fish to fry. Who knows?
What we do know is that the allegation that the leaks cost lives is one for which there is no evidence. And yet it gets trotted out again and again. If you really think that’s about a genuine concern, then good for you. But on the face of it, it looks like propaganda in the aid of discrediting the idea that the government keeps too many secrets from its citizens about what it is doing in their name.
If you don’t know sarcasm when you see it, you are even sadder than I thought.
That still doesn’t answer the central issue that there was no way for Manning or Assange to predict that none of the informants would be murdered on that information, especially when knowing what we do know about the Taliban it was more than likely that they would be. Probably by beheading I would think, that being the Taliban’s favourite method.
Just because Manning and Assange got lucky doesn’t actually contradict their gross and arrogant disregard for those people. If they want to martyr themselves, fine, but they had no justification at all for putting those people at risk.
For all I know the Taliban are still tracking these people down if they haven’t fled to Pakistan or Iran, or hopped a boat to Australia only to be sent to PNG. I don’t know. But then again I’m not playing games with other people’s lives to feed my white knight complex.
Of course I recognise sarcasm. Do you realise that you often use sarcasm to establish strawmen? You sarcastically respond to people instead of addressing what they actually say.
What you are avoiding is the fact that wikileaks et al did in fact redact sensitive names. It looks from the actual consequences that they did a pretty good job of it.
Your initial, tiresomely sarcastic, comment was:
Because of course there wonât be any consequences for their actionsâŚ
Oh waitâŚ
followed by a list of speculations in 2010 that never eventuated.
If you read your comment, you will see the form that it takes, posing the sarcastic assertion that nothing would happen followed by the ‘Oh wait’ suggesting that something had in fact happened. When actually, if you’d been following the story, or even bothered to check, you’d know that it hadn’t.
As for Wikileaks responsibilities, you are deeply confused. If the state wants things kept secret, it is the state’s responsibility to take care to do so. But that’s a whole nother discussion from this one, and one I strongly suspect you are not equipped for pop.
So basically you are not going to admit that there was no way of knowing if those predictions from 2010 would have happened or not.
“As for Wikileaks responsibilities, you are deeply confused. If the state wants things kept secret, it is the stateâs responsibility to take care to do so. But thatâs a whole nother discussion from this one, and one I strongly suspect you are not equipped for pop”
I am well enough equipped to suggest that the state is doing exactly that by severely punnishing as an example someone who broke their oath of service and abused their position to steal those secrets.
You mouthed off saying there had been consequences and when called on it launched yet another war on straw.
And like I said, we are still waiting to see if those consequences come about. Given the time passed, I’d suggest, ‘nah’.
I am well enough equipped to suggest that the state is doing exactly that by severely punnishing as an example someone who broke their oath of service and abused their position to steal those secrets.
I am well enough equipped to suggest that the state is doing exactly that by severely punnishing as an example someone who broke their oath of service and abused their position to steal those secrets.
*whooooosh* the point is that those secrets were not safely kept. If the state had a duty to keep them in order to protect lives, then Manning (a bored Pvte sitting at a workstation In Iraq) shouldn’t have had access in the first place, or the capability to distribute. It is the state’s duty to secure its secrets, and it sure as hell isn’t wikileaks’.
I deny that there were the consequences you implied, and that it is wikileaks responsibility in any case.
And really Pop?
Saying that if the state has legitimate reasons to keep things secret then it has a duty to secure those secrets, is like saying rape victims deserve it?
That’s some pretty fucked up thought processes you’ve got going there Mr I have a Stochastic view of society and believe in horizontal anarcho-democratic blah blah.
Of course, if the media really was the absolute puppet of the power elites, journalists wouldn’t gain reputations by reporting on government and corporate corruption, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times wouldn’t disagree on most issues in their editorials, entertainment programmes wouldn’t depict politicians and corporations as villains most of the time, tabloids wouldn’t report scandals about politicians and bankers, and the Guardian wouldn’t have reported Snowden’s “revelations’, to give just a few examples.
populaxtive how many papers report dissent SFA as for the bankers how many have been jailed not one so far the media will report only part of the story but won’t dare follow through.
These economic terrorists have had carte blanch to carry on as if nothing was ever done wrong.
To add insult to injury these same banks including BoA merrill Lynch who got a $65 billion hand out and are aloud to carry on with the same activity that brought on the Financial crisis no holding to account by your free media !
Um, how do you know they haven’t been jailed? Oh, wait. The media. And if you don’t like that, use the internet like a normal person and stop crying about people not giving you information.
The reality is that so many people rely on free web-based aggregators for their news that the MSM is haemoraging money and therefore has been laying off journalist and editorial staff and becoming fluffier and fluffier in an effort to retain circulation. Basically there’s no conspiracy, it’s just the average Joe is lazy, cheap and doesn’t care.
Well, that’s a false way to look at the US media situation at the moment, as it completely ignores the tendency of the US media to uncritically support and amplify the messaging wanted by the political and financial establishment.
The reality is that so many people rely on free web-based aggregators for their news that the MSM is haemoraging money and therefore has been laying off journalist and editorial staff and becoming fluffier and fluffier in an effort to retain circulation.
No. The economics of the newspapers in the late 19th and 20th century has been that they relied on classified ads to provide the bulk of the income. The news stories were effectively cross subsidised by those ads as a come-on. The ads were effectively *local* to a city, so that provided the monopolistic advantage. When the ad disappeared into things like trademe, so did that cross-subsidy (and monopolistic advantage) and the subscription price climbed from low to an extravagance.
You could see this economic model most clearly in the suburban newspapers which were given away with a few local stories and whole lot of ads. They also seem to be the only newspapers with much of a future.
But I don’t know of many people who use web based aggregators. The most common aggregator is (as it always has been), the newspapers with their feeds from places like AP, reuters, and the late lamented NZPA. There was a leavening of local content on top and a few locally written opeds. But you can get the feeds from anywhere on the net.
Mostly people have just have a few newspaper websites or blogs or online live mags like Slate that they go to. But these can be from anywhere in the world. It is only the local news that local online newspapers retain an advantage in.
The trick for “newspapers” on the web is that they have to collect an audience purely on the basis of their own local writing and their own opinion pieces. But they’re often not that good at it.
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Let's Do This Again: What else can Jacinda do in a political environment so bereft of imagination and courage but seek a continuance? If she trades upon the extraordinary personal qualities that she has, miraculously, carried with her into the office of Prime Minister, then I, for one, will offer ...
How corrupt are the New Zealand Police? This corrupt: On 10 February 2019, Police attended a family harm incident. The suspect attempted to run the attending officers over in a driveway with his car, narrowly missing them, before fleeing the scene. A short pursuit followed, ending when the suspect stopped ...
Parliament's triennial Review of Standing Orders was released today, and it contains a number of welcome, if minor, improvements. The ones that caught my are: A move to encourage "pre-legislative engagement" - the government consulting widely on legislation before it is introduced - by promising easier passage (e.g. with ...
Lauren Vargo, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonGlaciers around the world are melting — and for the first time, we can now directly attribute annual ice loss to climate change. We analysed two years in which glaciers in New Zealand melted the most in at least four ...
Caroline Shaw, Anja MizdrakE-bikes are everywhere. Sales are booming and predicted to overtake sales of new cars in a few years. There were three times as many e-bikes and e-scooters imported into NZ in 2019 alone as there are e-cars in the entire country. You can’t go out in ...
New Zealand First is facing a difficult struggle to get re-elected, but Josh Van Veen, who was once a researcher for Winston Peters, argues that there is still a very significant section of cultural conservatives who oppose mass immigration and political correctness and might yet be won back over to ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk Many Americans these days seem unable to avoid controversy on practically any topic, so why not embrace the discord and wade into the especially volatile arena of nuclear energy? Advocates claim it’s the only way to meet global climate goals, ...
Can we trust New Zealand’s military? There must now be serious doubt, given the landmark report released on Friday concluding the investigation into allegations made in the book Hit and Run by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson about a 2010 SAS killing raid in Afghanistan. The most recent Colmar Brunton ...
In New Zealand, we've just had the report of the Hit and Run inquiry, which found that a New Zealand led raid had accidentally killed civilians, including a child. meanwhile, around the same time, the British SAS was conducting its own raids in Afghanistan, and theirs were a hell of ...
In addition to establishing a process for setting emissions reductions plans, the Zero Carbon Act established a process for managing the risks of climate change. The first part of this is the preparation of regular risk assessments, looking at the risks to our economy, society, environment, and ecology. The first ...
Over on The spinoff, Amnesty International's Meg de Ronde has a response to Friday's release of the Hit and Run report. And in response to Attorney-General David Parker's claim that the government was being "transparent" by releasing the report, its titled "we shouldn’t have to work this hard to get ...
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Rising Seas Could Menace Millions Beyond Shorelines, Study FindsAs climate change raises sea levels, storm surges and high tides will ...
There's an election next month, so you'd be expecting political parties to be telling us what they stand for and what they'd do if they'd win. But while the Greens have given us a detailed policy platform, and National has talked about roads and austerity, Labour, currently leading the polls ...
"Who's youse accusin' of innference?" Without the timely intervention of a team of top American political consultants and campaign experts, Boris Yeltsin would never have won his second term as President of the Russian Federation. The Russians waited 20 years to return the favour.WHEN IT COMES to the disinformation game, ...
As polling day in the American presidential election draws closer, things are looking bad for Donald Trump. The polls show that he is tracking well behind his Democrat rival. Most people assume that the President will be striving might and main to avoid what looks increasingly likely to be a ...
Our health professionals do an amazing job. Image credit: Wikipedia – Cardiac surgery. Finally, I have got back to these rankings. A long period in hospital and computer problems meant the June 2020 rankings were abandoned. Now, with a new personal defibrillator implanted in my chest and a new hard ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, July 26 through Sat, Aug 1, 2020Editor's ChoiceThe four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them allThe shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological ...
Over the last few days, reports have emerged of people travelling from New Zealand and testing positive for Covid-19 upon arrival at their destination. First in South Korea and now in Australia. What might these positive tests mean?They’re false-positives As Toby Morris and I have explained before, there are ...
Former National Minister - Wayne MappYou could tell that the Hit and Run book by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson was right on the money by the way former National Party Minister of Defence, Wayne Mapp, reacted to its now largely vindicated claims.Even though the recent inquiry into ...
So, the Hit and Run inquiry has reported back, and found some appalling shit at NZDF and NZSIS. And while they quibble a few of the details - the name of a dead child - they basicly uphold Hager and Stephenson's version of events. The SAS went to those villages. ...
We are failing to think though the interdependencies in an economy. We miss economist Bryan Philpott (1921-2000). I miss him personally – we used to have such great discussions – but this column is about how the nation misses his economic experience and wisdom. We tend to ...
Michelle Boag - LeakerThe Heron report (PDF) was released yesterday, and it was a bit disappointing to say the least. It correctly found that former National Party president Michelle Boag and National Party MP Hamish Walker were politically motivated in leaking peoples private medical information, but didn’t look further into ...
Adam Smith, Massey UniversityA recent global assessment of shark populations at 371 coral reefs in 58 countries found no sharks at almost 20% of reefs and alarmingly low numbers at many others. The study, which involved over 100 scientists under the Global FinPrint project, gave New Zealand a good ...
On different trajectories and from different ends of the political spectrum, last night’s One News/Colmar Brunton poll has the Green Party and ACT converging around the five percent mark. And, as odd as it may sound, they head into the election campaign with a lot in common.Putting the Greens and ...
Janet Stephenson, University of OtagoA proposed multibillion-dollar project to build a pumped hydro storage plant could make New Zealand’s electricity grid 100% renewable, but expensive new infrastructure may not be the best way to achieve this. New Zealand’s electricity generation is already around 80% renewable, with just over half ...
Truth In Advertising: Labour, it would seem, is the party that knows nothing about running the economy right up until the moment that it does. HOW DID LABOUR acquire its reputation for being a poor economic manager? As with most things political and historical, it’s a long story.In the beginning, the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Government rulemakers looking to decide how much money to spend to avoid adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere need a good estimate of what a warming climate will cost in social damages, for example through more extreme weather events. That point makes ...
It's campaign time! The official countdown to Election Day is underway, with Labour supporters crowding into Auckland's Town Hall for our 2020 Campaign Launch. We recap some of the highlights below ...
It's campaign time! The official countdown to Election Day is underway, with Labour supporters crowding into Auckland's Town Hall for our 2020 Campaign Launch. We recap some of the highlights below ...
We've announced that we will expand the Flexi-wage programme to support up to 40,000 more people into work, or to help them start their own business. It's yet another way we're helping keep our economy moving by getting people into work and training. Read on to find out more ...
Business subsidy of on average $7500, and up to $22,000, to hire unemployed New ZealandersUp to 40,000 jobs to be supported by $311 million investment in keeping New Zealanders off the unemployment benefitRing-fenced fund to help unemployed start their own business ...
This week was the last of the 52nd Parliament: a major milestone for our Government and a great opportunity to look back at all the progress we've made for New Zealanders. This week, we increased support for businesses to take on apprentices, improved access to hospital care in Northland, and ...
Kia orana and kia ora koutou katoa. It is a privilege to be able to speak in this adjournment debate and to mark and acknowledge the fact that we are now two years and 10 months into the conclusion of a parliamentary term that has been extraordinary in so many ...
On 1 August, we marked the anniversary of Jacinda Ardern becoming the Leader of the Labour Party. On that day in 2017, Leader Andrew Little nominated Jacinda Ardern to succeed him and lead the party to victory.Now, three years on, we look back at some of the key moments ...
With the June 2020 quarter showing underemployment increasing, the Green Party is calling for a Guaranteed Minimum Income and an increase to the abatement threshold to ensure everyone has a dignified income. ...
We went hard and we went early in our health response to COVID-19, and we did everything we could to cushion the economic impact too. In fact, we can fill every letter of the alphabet with the steps we took to fight COVID-19 and ensure we were in a position ...
Investing in our people, backing businesses, and upgrading infrastructure and housing throughout the country - it's been another week of progress for New Zealanders as we deliver our plan to recover and rebuild. ...
July was another busy month, packed with key investments aimed at progressing our economic recovery as we rebuild New Zealand. We extended support for businesses, helped create jobs through local infrastructure projects, and kept working to clean up our waterways so Kiwis can access safe clean water. Check out the ...
The Green Party is calling for the Defence Force Chiefs in place between 2010-2017 to front up and explain how dishonesty, process and policy failures within the Defence Force led to ‘a series of incorrect statements in briefings to ministers and public releases’ regarding alleged breaches of international torture prevention ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
The Government is stepping up action to deal with environmentally harmful products – including plastic packaging, tyres and e-waste – before they become waste. ...
The Green Party are ensuring that New Zealanders who were overseas when COVID-19 hit will not be charged for the cost of isolation or quarantine if they return home to live. ...
It's been another week of creating jobs, supporting local businesses, and investing in infrastructure up and down the country - all of which are helping to keep our economy moving post-COVID-19. ...
Law changes to end tenure review and provide for better management of Crown pastoral lands in the South Island high country were considered by Parliament today with the first reading of the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill says Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage. ...
The Green Party have secured legislative amendments in a bill expected to pass third reading this week, to ensure better rules for school teachers and staff, so they can de-escalate children with diverse needs and cognitive differences, such as autism, rather than using unnecessary and often traumatising force. ...
A report undertaken by Ministerial Services into Iain Lees-Galloway’s ministerial expenditure has found no evidence of any inappropriate transactions or spending. Ministerial Services undertook a line by line review of all his expenditure, including staff and spouse expenses for the period 1 January 2019 to 30 June 2020. “I commissioned ...
Managed isolation charges for returnees will come into force from 12.01am Tuesday 11th August, after they passed their last cabinet milestone today, Housing Minister Megan Woods said. “The new charging system balances the rights of New Zealanders to return home and helps reduce pressure on the managed isolation and quarantine ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Henry Puna have welcomed the completion of phase one in the establishment of a travel bubble between New Zealand and the Cook Island. Negotiations on the text of an ‘Arrangement to Facilitate Quarantine-Free Travel ...
The Government has launched a new online, phone and onsite service to help New Zealanders connect to a range of employment support and products for workers and businesses affected by COVID-19, announced Minister of Education Chris Hipkins and Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. Connected.govt.nz is a one-stop-shop for jobseekers, ...
Security guards contracted to the Ministry of Social Development will be paid at least the Living Wage from next month supporting the Government’s commitment towards fair pay and employment conditions, announced Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. “MSD was among the first government agencies to pay its employees the living ...
The Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today launched Te Mana o te Taiao, the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy - a way forward that envisions Aotearoa New Zealand as a place where ecosystems are healthy and resilient, and people embrace the natural world. “Many of New Zealand’s plants and wildlife species ...
“Pacific languages, cultures and identity are essential to the health, wellbeing and lifetime success of our Pacific peoples and their communities in Aotearoa. The strength and resilience of Pacific Aotearoa is not only vital to their own prosperity but integral to the prosperity of all New Zealanders, and is particularly ...
· $38 million to help schools cover unexpected costs related to COVID-19 · $69 million upgrade for online learning · $107 million contingency funding to support school construction suppliers facing additional costs due to the lockdown. The Government is releasing $214 million from the COVID-19 response and recovery fund to ...
Despite the Government installing safety upgrades around the country, people should still take care around rail crossings, said Transport Minister Phil Twyford launching Rail Safety Week. Phil Twyford said installing safety infrastructure is crucial, but we are encouraging people to be more careful around trains too. “We’re making good progress ...
The Government is providing a cash injection to help Palmerston North City Council complete a programme to provide 78 social housing units for vulnerable tenants. The $4.7 million to build 28 units in the Papaioea Place redevelopment comes from the $3 billion set aside for infrastructure in the Government’s COVID-19 ...
A pest free Banks Peninsula/Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū is one step closer with a $5.11 million boost to accelerate this project and create jobs, announced Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage in Canterbury today. “This is a game changer for this ambitious project to restore the native wildlife and plants on Ōtautahi/Christchurch’s doorstep ...
A Government grant of $6.4 million will expand the Pettigrew Arena in Taradale with new indoor courts of national standard. “The project is likely to take 18 months with approximately 300 people employed through the process,” Grant Robertson said. “The expansion will increase the indoor court space up to 11 ...
The Far North tourist destination of Mangonui is to receive Government funding to improve waterfront infrastructure, open up access to the harbour and improve water quality, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has announced. A total of $6.5 million from the $3 billion set aside in the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund ...
The Government has re-affirmed its commitment to supporting the hosting of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, which the ICC has delayed from 2021 to 2022. “This is obviously a disappointing decision for cricket players and fans around the world and for the White Ferns and their supporters here at ...
Cyclists and walkers will now have a safer way to get around Taupō, Tūrangi, and between Hamilton and Cambridge, with funding for shared paths and Te Awa River Ride, Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. “The Te Awa River Ride is the latest part of massive growth ...
Six major cycle routes will be completed in Christchurch thanks to funding from the Government’s investment in shovel-ready infrastructure as part of the COVID-19 recovery Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. $125 million will be invested to kick-start construction and fund the completion of the following cycleway ...
Plans are underway for a brand new state-of-the-art hub for Whanganui’s justice and social agencies, following confirmation the ageing Whanganui Central Police Station is to be replaced. Police Minister Stuart Nash has announced $25 million in new infrastructure spending to improve facilities for the wider community, and for staff who ...
An adjustment payment has been made to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu under the relativity mechanisms in their 1995 and 1997 Treaty of Waitangi settlements, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little announced today. The latest payments to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu are $2,700,000 and $2,600,000 respectively to ensure the ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Transport Minister Phil Twyford today kicked off the start of the Auckland NZ Upgrade Programme rail projects which will support over 400 jobs and help unlock our biggest city. Both ministers marked the start of enabling works on the third main rail line project ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment of $3.78 million in Wairoa will create much needed economic stimulus and jobs, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. PGF projects announced today include: $200,000 loan to Nuhaka Kiwifruit Holdings Ltd (operated by Pine Valley Orchard Ltd) to increase the productivity ...
Tenants in public and Māori housing may be benefiting from their own affordable renewable energy in future – a fund to trial renewable energy technology for public and Māori housing has today been announced by Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods and Associate Minister for Housing (Māori Housing) Nanaia Mahuta. ...
Hokianga will receive $2.7 million to redevelop four of its wharves and upgrade its water supply, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Far North District Council will receive $1.8 million from the Provincial Growth Fund for the work on the wharves. “The work will include the construction of ...
A $350 million Residential Development Response Fund is being established to support the residential construction sector and to minimise the economic impact from COVID-19, the Housing Minister Dr Megan Woods has announced. “The Residential Development Response Fund will help to progress stalled or at-risk developments that support our broader housing ...
As part of a broader plan to divert waste from landfill, the Government today announced $10.67 million for new infrastructure as part of the Resource Recovery Network across the Auckland region. “This key investment in Auckland’s community recycling network is part of the Government’s Infrastructure Reference Group ‘shovel ready’ projects ...
The Government is investing $45 million in the first stage of an ambitious urban development project for Tauranga that will employ up to 250 people and help the region grow, Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says the funding has been allocated out of the $3 billion ...
Getting low-emission trucks on the road is a step closer with investment in infrastructure to support hydrogen vehicles, the Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods has announced. The Infrastructure Reference Group has provisionally approved $20 million for New Plymouth company Hiringa Energy to establish a nationwide network of hydrogen-fuelling stations. ...
A new trades training centre to upskill the local workforce will be built in the South Waikato town of Tokoroa through funding from the Government’s COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund, Education Minister Chris Hipkins and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones have announced. The Government will contribute $10.84 million from ...
The Government has agreed to repeal part of the Oranga Tamariki Act subsequent children provisions, Minister for Children Tracey Martin announced today. “There are times when children need to go into care for their safety – the safety and care of children must always be paramount,” Minister Martin said. “But ...
A $1.5 million boost to grow primary mental health and addiction services for Pacific peoples in Auckland, Hamilton and Canterbury will lead to better outcomes for Pacific communities, Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa says. Pasifika Futures has received funding to expand services through The Fono, Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest by ...
Twenty-two projects to boost the sustainability and climate resilience of New Zealand’s food and fibres sector have been announced today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The $18m funding will deliver practical knowledge to help farmers and growers use their land more sustainably, meet environmental targets, remain prosperous, and better understand ...
Employment Minister Willie Jackson welcomes an initiative that assists employers to get mature workers into New Zealand small businesses. The disadvantages that older people face in the workplace was highlighted in the whole of Government Employment Strategy. In order to address this, a Mature Workers Toolkit has been developed and ...
New Zealand and Australia reaffirmed today the need for the closest possible collaboration as they tackle a global environment shaped by COVID-19, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said. “In these challenging times, our close collaboration with Australia is more vital than ever,” said Mr Peters. Mr Peters and his Australian ...
The recovery and forensic examination of the loader driven by survivor Russell Smith means the underground team are now moving into an area of the Pike River Mine that has not been seen since the explosion, Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-entry Andrew Little said. “The fifth and last robot ...
The Government has confirmed a community-wide trial of CovidCard technology as it explores options for COVID-19 contact tracing. “Effective contact tracing is a vital part of the COVID-19 response,” Minister of Health Chris Hipkins said. “While manual processes remain the critical component for contact tracing, we know digital solutions can ...
The government is proposing changes to aquaculture legislation to improve the process for allocating and transferring aquaculture assets to iwi. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash has introduced the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill to Parliament. It proposes a limited new discretionary power for Te Ohu Kaimoana Trustee Limited (ToKM). ...
The Minister of Justice has today introduced the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill – the next step in the ongoing programme of work to fix the failed 2014 Family Court reforms led by then Justice Minister Judith Collins. The Bill arises from the report of the Independent ...
A new Department of Conservation (DOC) action plan tackles the impacts of climate change on New Zealand’s biodiversity and DOC managed infrastructure including tracks, huts and cultural heritage. Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage says extreme weather events around the country have really brought home our vulnerability to changing weather patterns. ...
A heavily scaled back international Antarctic season will commence this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods have confirmed. “Antarctica is the only continent that is COVID-19 free,” Mr Peters said. “Throughout the global pandemic, essential operations and long-term science have continued at ...
The Government is providing up to $30 million to help fund the NZ Campus of Innovation and Sport in Upper Hutt - an investment that will create 244 jobs. “The sports hub is designed to be a world-leading shared service for a range of sports, offering the level of facilities ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today transport projects currently in construction will continue at pace due to extra Government support for transport projects to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. To keep the $16.9 billion 2018-21 National Land Transport Programme going the Government has allocated funding from the COVID Response and ...
Linda Burgess reviews Curtis Sittenfeld’s much-anticipated novel, Rodham. I read Rodham a while ago now but I put off writing about it. I was waiting. Waiting for what exactly? Well, waiting to see if they do what Trump kept insisting they do, back then, when the world seemed what we nostalgically ...
The 52nd Parliament will be dissolved this week, formally marking the first step towards holding the general election. The public is invited to witness this significant, triennial event which will take place on the Parliament forecourt on Wednesday 12 ...
The Public Service Association welcomes the decision by FIRST Union to join the campaign for an Aotearoa Wellbeing Commitment, a policy proposal that all New Zealanders should receive services like healthcare, education, public transport and broadband ...
An increased focus on ‘talking about it’ will only help if we’re honest with ourselves and each other about what is driving self-inflicted deaths in this country, writes Carla na Nagara.There has always been debate about whether talking about suicide is responsible or constructive. And since the Covid-19 alert level ...
“The racing industry continues to get special treatment as the Government makes ad hoc decisions at the border,” according to ACT Leader David Seymour. “Racing has been given significant taxpayer funds through NZ First’s slush fund and now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Bradfield, Research Fellow in Behavioural Neuroscience, University of Technology Sydney As COVID-19 lockdowns were introduced, we all suddenly had to find new ways of doing things. Schooling shifted online, meetings moved to Zoom, workplaces brought in new measures and even social ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne Media coverage of disasters follows a broadly similar trajectory, even though the disasters themselves might take very different forms. The COVID-19 crisis in Victoria is no exception. Although it is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Madeline Taylor, Lecturer, University of Sydney New South Wales planning authorities relied on flawed evidence when backing a highly controversial coal seam gas project that may endanger critical water supplies, farmland and threatened species, our analysis has found. Early next month, the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Noetel, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Australian Catholic University In response to COVID-19, almost every university has scrambled to move its teaching online. To do this, academics have been choosing between two approaches: live videoconferencing using tools such as Zoom, or pre-recording ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Doran, Associate professor/Deputy head of school, UNSW The stock market is not the economy. This old and playful maxim is typically not true: often the stock market is a good proxy for the economy and a very good indication of what ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isaac Gross, Lecturer in Economics, Monash University The government has widely touted its support for small businesses – most notably the provision of loans subsidised by the Reserve Bank. In its economic update on Friday the Reserve Bank talked up its low-cost ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marie Hadley, Associate Lecturer in Law, University of Newcastle The Australian Copyright Agency has licensed an Indigenous artwork for a custom tattoo. It is the first instance of tattoo licensing for the agency, and perhaps Australia at large. The agency granted a ...
Welcome to Election Live for August 11, bringing you the latest on election 2020 and other breaking news. For key dates in the election seasonclick here. For all you need to know about the cannabis referendum click here. For the assisted dying referendum click here. Policy launches soon. Get ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Concern from the Cook Islands over travel bubble, inquiry clears Iain Lees-Galloway of any spending impropriety, and Oranga Tamariki facing further damaging report findings.A draft agreement on a travel bubble with the Cook Islands is close to being finalised, the ...
A mining company director demands Newsroom take down a story on rehabilitation conditions agreed with DoC for a former site on conservation land National leader Judith Collins' husband is threatening defamation action against Newsroom over a story about a West Coast mine site that the conservation department allowed to be left ...
A bizarre allegation on the TV news and a scolding of party members by a top official set the scene for a highly charged National Party candidate selection The National Party has chosen Emma Mellow as its candidate for the Auckland Central seat with less than four weeks until early voting begins, ...
Those most impacted by Covid-19 are those who can least afford to weather it, write Professor Merryn Gott and Dr Jackie Robinson Emerging evidence from overseas regarding the clear link between poverty and Covid-19 is as predictable as it is heartbreaking. People living in the most deprived areas of England and Wales ...
An essay, and memoir, by Dunedin writer Talia Marshall on fighting the White Power bitches at school Sophia turns up at my new place by happy accident. We haven’t seen each other properly for over 20 years but we’re friends on Facebook. One of the reasons I like Facebook, apart ...
A lack of central government policy on climate change adaptation has left councils treading water as they attempt to engage with threatened communities. ...
Since a nationwide amalgamation in 2017 there have been mass resignations at the SPCA, claims of bullying and employment dispute payouts. Now an online petition calling for a government inquiry has gained nearly 1000 signatures in five days A petition for a government inquiry to be launched into the transparency and accountability ...
A bizarre allegation on the TV news and a scolding of party members by a top official set the scene for a highly charged National Party candidate selection The National Party has chosen Emma Mellow as its candidate for the Auckland Central seat with less than four weeks until early voting begins, ...
In announcing the company's full-year results on Monday, Contact Energy CEO Mike Fuge warned of a "turbulent time" for the electricity market amid the exit of Tiwai Point. ...
After struggling with depression while recovering from a devastating knee injury, Tactix midcourter Erikana Pedersen wants to take her career in a new direction to help others. Last year was the “crappiest" of Erikana Pedersen’s 26 revolutions around the sun. But this year may turn out to be the best. Pedersen's year of ...
The polls and pundits are predicting the demise of NZ First leader Winston Peters and his party, but he has no plans to surrender or retire from politics, Dileepa Fonseka writes. ...
Those most impacted by Covid-19 are those who can least afford to weather it, write Professor Merryn Gott and Dr Jackie Robinson Emerging evidence from overseas regarding the clear link between poverty and Covid-19 is as predictable as it is heartbreaking. People living in the most deprived areas of England and Wales ...
Te Arawhiti is bypassing Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Hikairo to try and get Ngāti Hikairo claims included in the Ngāti Maniapoto Settlement. Ngāti Maniapoto have set up two meetings in Kāwhia ‘with Ngāti Hikairo’ to consult on their Treaty settlements. ...
Welcome to the third edition of Memebers of parliament, a politics column for people who just want the memes.Let’s just get to it, shall we?Buses – YESBuses. They’re back. Winston Peters has had his giant face on a big ol’ bus for a while now, but he surely won’t be ...
The New Zealand government’s aid in developing countries is not going to projects where it is needed most, says Oxfam, according to a new report published by agency today. Less than two percent of aid spending went to activities focused solely on ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is meant to fund… growth… in the provinces. So why is it building a huge new racetrack in one of New Zealand’s biggest cities? Because the racing industry seems to get whatever it wants, argues Duncan Greive. Yesterday morning saw a blazing RNZ report that the Provincial ...
Long awaited changes to tenancy law have been made - are they really the landlord-killers that some make them out to be? Last week the Government passed under urgency a series of big changes to New Zealand's tenancy laws. The reforms of the 1986 Residential Tenancies Act have been in ...
Tonight the National Party has selected Emma Mellow to stand in the Auckland Central electorate for the 2020 General Election. Emma Mellow replaces retiring MP Nikki Kaye who first won the seat from Labour in 2008. Emma leads a team of communications ...
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk Radio 95bFM The Wire’s Zoë Larsen Cumming and Justin Wong talked to Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie today about a resurgence of coronavirus cases in Papua New Guinea and the impact of other Pacific cases on two very important upcoming votes in Bougainville and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Maylea, Senior Lecturer, Law and Social Work, RMIT University The second wave of the coronavirus and the resulting restrictions have impacted all Victorians. Many are struggling, but some are struggling more than others. In response to the increasing number of people ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Stone, General practitioner; Clinical Associate Professor, ANU Medical School, Australian National University Last week, the Australian government announced it will provide ten extra Medicare-subsidised psychological therapy sessions for Australians in lockdown areas due to COVID-19. In such a stressful time, many ...
It looks like science has come off second best in government considerations during the development of Te Mana o te Taiao, the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy, which envisions New Zealand as a place where ecosystems are healthy and resilient, and people embrace the natural world. The press statement announcing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wanning Sun, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Technology Sydney US President Donald Trump’s recent moves against Tiktok, the popular video-sharing platform, have been widely seen as part of a new “tech Cold War” between the US and China. Trump ...
National leader Judith Collins has endorsed David Seymour in the Epsom seat and recent polls have put support for ACT anywhere between 3 and 5 percent - giving it up to six MPs. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lily O’Neill, Research Fellow, Australian National University Huge clean energy projects, such as the Asian Renewable Energy Hub in the Pilbara, Western Australia, are set to produce gigawatts of electricity over vast expanses of land in the near future. The Asian Renewable ...
Remarks by new coach Nathan Brown and the closed-door discussions by the club around recruiting a man facing sexual assault charges undermines the rugby league club’s values, writes Tiffany Salmond.It’s been a hot topic in rugby league circles for well over a year – but not for the right reasons.Former ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Uri Gal, Associate Professor in Business Information Systems, University of Sydney The recent questioning of the heads of Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple in the US Congress has highlighted the threat their practices pose to our privacy and democracy. However these big ...
Good habits start young, and with Money Week this week, now is a great time to look at how we can support and nourish our kids’ financial journeys writes Banqer’s Simon Brown. For some reason, a lot of people see money as a boring topic. But the fact is, it’s a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne This week’s federal Newspoll, conducted August 5-8 from a sample of 1,509, gave the Coalition a 52-48 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since the last Newspoll, three weeks ago. ...
A tender for underwater inspection services at the abandoned oil field off the coast of Taranaki has shed light on the dubious state of its subsea infrastructure. ...
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Or you may want to ask yourself this.
If Key … as the sole Minister responsible for the GCSB … has had unfettered access to virtually all digital communications in and around Parliament, is there anyone else beginning to wonder exactly what all that wonderful ‘teflon’ he’s been so fortunate with these last five years ….is really made of?
God alone knows RL. The picture I’m getting is of private information flying in all freaking directions under this government.
Its a problem.
Dunno but its really starting to smell bad.
On the money with that comment RL…
What I’d like to see is MSM (especially tv news) coming up with some sort of system diagram of the apparent information & misinformation/disinformation flows around this whole mess. I’m having trouble keeping track of all the pathways and players now. Maybe that’s their defensive strategy đ
Gonna go walk the dog and see if that helps make it any clearer when I get back.
This article was interesting: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/8996269/Spy-agencies-addicted-to-corporate-data
But Key is not winning because he’s got the goods on us, he’s winning because we are sad losers.
We are already intimidated by his class rule.
He says lets spy on everyone because they could be a terrorist, we say nah please let’s have an independent authority to decide what terrorism is.
Key and his class are the terrorists and we will abolish them and the need for them to spy on us.
Corrupt. Arrogant. Ceaucescu. Corrupt. Arrogant.
Nah, Marcos.
Who was supported to the hilt for the longest time by whom? Ah yes, the US of A.
There are also similarities to the trajectory of Fujimori in Peru.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/07/world/americas/peru-fujimori
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22823488
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Fujimori
http://www.reuters.com/…/us-peru-fujimori-idUSBRE95612R20130607
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/…/peru/…/alberto-fujimori-pardon-bid
http://www.peruthisweek.com/news-peruvian-authorities-look-all-around-the-world-for-fujimoris-hidden-money-100337
“Morsi took wrong lessons from Fujimori”
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/07/alaa-aswany-eygypt-religious-parties-morsi.html
“He says lets spy on everyone because they could be a terrorist,”
OR
“He says lets spy on a small number of people because there is prima facie evidence they could be terrorists (which has always happened) because the duty of the Government is to safeguard the welfare of its citizens”
I am sure most New Zealanders are reassured by an ability to spy. And if the Government is going to spy it should be done efficiently. I see the main purpose of the Bill as to tidy up the spying business after the pigs ear legislation left by Labour in 2003 – a deliberate pig’s ear.
Governments have always spied to prevent us against threats. They should do it efficiently backed by efficient and clear laws.
Bullshit.
It needs to be done correctly, under highly regulated conditions, with high degrees of demcratic oversight.
+1
The problem with spying is that by definition it is secret. It should be highly regulated but we need to rely on strong institutions. It can hardly be controlled by a committee with R Norman as a member.
At the end of the day everything in NZ has democratic oversight – the Government can be thrown out by the people.
srylands so we can rely on a conman and a liar
sryland the suckhole
democracy is under attack by the very people who would have us believing they are the defenders.
Key turning down free armoured vehicles from Australia in Afghanistan that cost 3 soldiers lives key is a murdering lying thief!
srylands you are part of the problem blindly following the most corrupt leader this country has ever had.
Go to cult victim at large (facebook)
It should be highly regulated but we need to rely on strong institutions.
Rules a John Key led government out then, the whole story, from back before the dotcom raid, through to now, has been one of shit oversight followed by incompetent lackluster reaction to failures.
Leading to this:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/columnists/tracy-watkins/8998288/Spy-bungles-start-to-entangle-PM
The guy is simply useless at this stuff, because he doesn’t seem to care. If you trust him to oversee even more power, you are an idiot.
Yours is exactly the sort of antidemocratic thinking that leads to spy agencies working against the democratic government. If R Norman were PM, or on a regulatory committee and they felt unable to comply with his legal instructions, they should all bloody well resign. Instead, what do they do? They hang around lying and continue working for Washington. And yours is the sort of treasonous thinking that justifies this, sorryhands.
.. so who is their Plan B ?
That implies there was a Plan A to begin with.
The electricity monopsony policy just got rubbished in the media by the academic pushed as the original inspiration, got a weak cartoon about that too?
Gosh TR, how unusual for you, rushing in report what DPF told you to reckon. *yawn*
No TR but weak being your strength, why don’t you draw up one.
Got a link?
Tricledrown, what is this about the Aussie offer of free armoured vehicles, when was this made?
I do know in 2010 we rejected MRAPs because they were too heavy and unstable. We could not get the newer lighter vehicle, since they were in short supply. In 2011 eleven LAV’s are sent over. Thereafter it was a mix of LAV’s and armoured Hummers.
Gosh Wayne 3 for 1 – do you always get that many?
[lprent: It is annoying and something to do with something getting around the anti-dup logic. Drat thought I had it fixed after I boosted the times and queue sizes. I clean them out as I see them. ]
yes key was offered heavily armoured vehicles for free by Australia designed to protect agaist IED’s as opposed to our regularly armed hummvee,s and Lav,s which aren,t protected from IED’s
An egregious example in the Herald:
Malcolm Jorgensen: Verdict’s message for Assange and world
What are these “obligations” and “democratic controls” of which he speaks?
Because of course there won’t be any consequences for their actions…
Oh wait…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7917955/Wikileaks-Afghanistan-Taliban-hunting-down-informants.html
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/08/02/taliban-seeks-vengeance-in-wake-of-wikileaks.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20011886-503543.html
http://www.collateralmurder.com/
Yeah well, about that, there’s this from Aug 1 2013:
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/08/01/bradley-mannings-sentencing-wikileaks-manning-have-no-blood-on-their-hands-from-afghan-war-logs-release/
Bit more recent than 2010. I’ll put a large quote in of the testimony and previous attempts to find people killed as a result of the wikileaks dox:
Oh waitâŚ
Yep, waiting.
A link would have been fine, preferably to something a bit more neutral, but in any case all that seems to boil down to is that they can’t prove for sure one way or the other while implying at the same time that the Taliban are such fine upstanding guys that they would never dream of using that information in such a way… Although they do seem to be killing people not on the list and attributing it to the list anyway – that suggests to me they probably don’t need any more help or excuses to murder people than they already have. But hey, lets put that into perspective because America bombed a Qu’ran school. To that I say yes, that’s a terrible atrocity, but to include it here does nothing except to try and make another bunch of murderous thugs who also kill children for wanting to go to school look less evil, hence making your source look highly dubious and slanted – as are you.
There is no implication that the Taliban are fine upstanding guys at all Pop. That’s just more of the strawman horsehit that you specialise in.
Are you disputing the quotes from the court case because they were published on Firedoglake? That would be ad-hom would it not?
The fact is that within days of the leaks, the state was saying they would be used to kill informants and that that wikileaks was reckless with regard to informants. During the court case the prosecution tried the same line on and it was shot down in flames.
And no, including it doesn’t ‘try to make the other side look less evil’, it just points out that the state was in fact hyping things up from a position of something well shy of the moral high ground itself.
“And no, including it doesnât âtry to make the other side look less evilâ, it just points out that the state was in fact hyping things up from a position of something well shy of the moral high ground itself.”
And you have the temerity to accuse ME of strawmanning! America’s war crimes are completely irrelevant to discussion of someone else’s war crimes. A war crime is a war crime and each must be examined individually. The subject at hand is did the Taliban use that information to murder people. Moral high ground has very little to do with it except to say “X is bad, but ‘Murika” and thereby deflect.
Even US intel couldn’t say the Taliban hadn’t used that information. The fact remains that the Taliban themselves announced their intent to use that information
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8166084/Taliban-prepare-to-punish-WikiLeaks-Afghan-informers.html
Am I not to give credence to what comes from the horse’s mouth?
Yes Pop, I do accuse you of stawman arguments. You said people were implying the Taliban were good guys, when no one was doing that.
And the point is that the US was arguing that the leaks would lead to people being killed. the US’s concern about people being being killed is in fact relevant to how seriously we should that concern, so it’s not a strawman at all.
And whether or not the Taliban said they might go after people has no bearing on claims that people were actually killed. The US knows who was named in the leaks, and couldn’t find any who had been killed. Not one. That has a higher credence to me than a piece of Taliban propaganda, YMMV.
So the only ‘consequences’ for wikileaks actions that you’ve been able to find is some taliban chest beating.
No, I said they were trying to make the US look worse (funny how the US are bombing schools but no mention of the little girls getting shot in the head for wanting to go to school), which tends to unnecissarily dilute the criminal behaviour of the Taliban.
The most pathetic part of your argument is the refusal to acknowledge that even if no one has been killed it doesn’t mean it couldn’t have easily gone the other way or that someone will be yet killed as a direct consequence. Oooh, there haven’t been any house fires for a while, obviously we don’t need fire engines. Your logic is deeply flawed. There is a reason why we welcomed those Afghani translators into our country – because the Taliban would have likely targeted them and their families. If you cannot see why handing them a list might be not such a good idea, you must have an ethical sense even more warped than the Taliban’s.
Also funny how you are treating a US military/government source as gospel when it suits. That seems very contrary to the norm around here.
Me: You said people were implying the Taliban were good guys, when no one was doing that.
You:
What you said: while implying at the same time that the Taliban are such fine upstanding guys that they would never dream of using that information in such a way⌠Although they do seem to be killing people not on the list and attributing it to the list anyway â that suggests to me they probably donât need any more help or excuses to murder people than they already have.
The fact is that all of that is a strawman. no one said the Taliban are good guys, no one implied it. All that is said is that the release did not cost lives as has been alleged. Possibly because, contra the US’s claims, wikileaks and the people they worked with redacted the names of informants. Possibly because much of what was released wasn’t all that secret from people in Afghanistan. Possibly because the taliban have bigger fish to fry. Who knows?
What we do know is that the allegation that the leaks cost lives is one for which there is no evidence. And yet it gets trotted out again and again. If you really think that’s about a genuine concern, then good for you. But on the face of it, it looks like propaganda in the aid of discrediting the idea that the government keeps too many secrets from its citizens about what it is doing in their name.
If you don’t know sarcasm when you see it, you are even sadder than I thought.
That still doesn’t answer the central issue that there was no way for Manning or Assange to predict that none of the informants would be murdered on that information, especially when knowing what we do know about the Taliban it was more than likely that they would be. Probably by beheading I would think, that being the Taliban’s favourite method.
Just because Manning and Assange got lucky doesn’t actually contradict their gross and arrogant disregard for those people. If they want to martyr themselves, fine, but they had no justification at all for putting those people at risk.
For all I know the Taliban are still tracking these people down if they haven’t fled to Pakistan or Iran, or hopped a boat to Australia only to be sent to PNG. I don’t know. But then again I’m not playing games with other people’s lives to feed my white knight complex.
Of course I recognise sarcasm. Do you realise that you often use sarcasm to establish strawmen? You sarcastically respond to people instead of addressing what they actually say.
What you are avoiding is the fact that wikileaks et al did in fact redact sensitive names. It looks from the actual consequences that they did a pretty good job of it.
Your initial, tiresomely sarcastic, comment was:
followed by a list of speculations in 2010 that never eventuated.
If you read your comment, you will see the form that it takes, posing the sarcastic assertion that nothing would happen followed by the ‘Oh wait’ suggesting that something had in fact happened. When actually, if you’d been following the story, or even bothered to check, you’d know that it hadn’t.
As for Wikileaks responsibilities, you are deeply confused. If the state wants things kept secret, it is the state’s responsibility to take care to do so. But that’s a whole nother discussion from this one, and one I strongly suspect you are not equipped for pop.
So basically you are not going to admit that there was no way of knowing if those predictions from 2010 would have happened or not.
“As for Wikileaks responsibilities, you are deeply confused. If the state wants things kept secret, it is the stateâs responsibility to take care to do so. But thatâs a whole nother discussion from this one, and one I strongly suspect you are not equipped for pop”
I am well enough equipped to suggest that the state is doing exactly that by severely punnishing as an example someone who broke their oath of service and abused their position to steal those secrets.
Completely beside the point Pop.
You mouthed off saying there had been consequences and when called on it launched yet another war on straw.
And like I said, we are still waiting to see if those consequences come about. Given the time passed, I’d suggest, ‘nah’.
I am well enough equipped to suggest that the state is doing exactly that by severely punnishing as an example someone who broke their oath of service and abused their position to steal those secrets.
I am well enough equipped to suggest that the state is doing exactly that by severely punnishing as an example someone who broke their oath of service and abused their position to steal those secrets.
*whooooosh* the point is that those secrets were not safely kept. If the state had a duty to keep them in order to protect lives, then Manning (a bored Pvte sitting at a workstation In Iraq) shouldn’t have had access in the first place, or the capability to distribute. It is the state’s duty to secure its secrets, and it sure as hell isn’t wikileaks’.
It’s not beside the point at all. Do you deny there could easily have been consequences for those named?
And the rest of your argument is the same logic as rape victims deserving it.
I deny that there were the consequences you implied, and that it is wikileaks responsibility in any case.
And really Pop?
Saying that if the state has legitimate reasons to keep things secret then it has a duty to secure those secrets, is like saying rape victims deserve it?
That’s some pretty fucked up thought processes you’ve got going there Mr I have a Stochastic view of society and believe in horizontal anarcho-democratic blah blah.
Sounds like most of the television news channels in NZ. RIP NZ journalism.
Of course, if the media really was the absolute puppet of the power elites, journalists wouldn’t gain reputations by reporting on government and corporate corruption, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times wouldn’t disagree on most issues in their editorials, entertainment programmes wouldn’t depict politicians and corporations as villains most of the time, tabloids wouldn’t report scandals about politicians and bankers, and the Guardian wouldn’t have reported Snowden’s “revelations’, to give just a few examples.
populaxtive how many papers report dissent SFA as for the bankers how many have been jailed not one so far the media will report only part of the story but won’t dare follow through.
These economic terrorists have had carte blanch to carry on as if nothing was ever done wrong.
To add insult to injury these same banks including BoA merrill Lynch who got a $65 billion hand out and are aloud to carry on with the same activity that brought on the Financial crisis no holding to account by your free media !
Um, how do you know they haven’t been jailed? Oh, wait. The media. And if you don’t like that, use the internet like a normal person and stop crying about people not giving you information.
The reality is that so many people rely on free web-based aggregators for their news that the MSM is haemoraging money and therefore has been laying off journalist and editorial staff and becoming fluffier and fluffier in an effort to retain circulation. Basically there’s no conspiracy, it’s just the average Joe is lazy, cheap and doesn’t care.
nah. The media model breakdown isn’t to do with ‘free news’, it’s about the loss of classified advertising.
It’s a combination of the two and ultimately if people only want to pay for fluffy shit, that is what they will get.
Well, that’s a false way to look at the US media situation at the moment, as it completely ignores the tendency of the US media to uncritically support and amplify the messaging wanted by the political and financial establishment.
No. The economics of the newspapers in the late 19th and 20th century has been that they relied on classified ads to provide the bulk of the income. The news stories were effectively cross subsidised by those ads as a come-on. The ads were effectively *local* to a city, so that provided the monopolistic advantage. When the ad disappeared into things like trademe, so did that cross-subsidy (and monopolistic advantage) and the subscription price climbed from low to an extravagance.
You could see this economic model most clearly in the suburban newspapers which were given away with a few local stories and whole lot of ads. They also seem to be the only newspapers with much of a future.
But I don’t know of many people who use web based aggregators. The most common aggregator is (as it always has been), the newspapers with their feeds from places like AP, reuters, and the late lamented NZPA. There was a leavening of local content on top and a few locally written opeds. But you can get the feeds from anywhere on the net.
Mostly people have just have a few newspaper websites or blogs or online live mags like Slate that they go to. But these can be from anywhere in the world. It is only the local news that local online newspapers retain an advantage in.
The trick for “newspapers” on the web is that they have to collect an audience purely on the basis of their own local writing and their own opinion pieces. But they’re often not that good at it.
Fair enough, but both circulation and advertising revenues are tailing off, which in turn impacts on the quality of reporting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7878090.stm