Larry Jones is driving the minivan across the Utah desert on Highway 163, with Sally in the passenger seat and the two kids dozing in the back.
William Scaggs forScientific American
In this case we are the helpless passengers in the back, and our parliamentarians are the driver.
If Larry refuses to slow down, then it is up to us the passengers, to do everything we can to make sure he listens to us.
Tonight at 7pm in Auckland, probably the biggest ever meeting called by Generation Zero on climate change is due to take place. Held in the Owen Glen complex in the Fisher &Paykel Auditorium, Auckland University, Wynyard Street. Make sure you are there.
The National government are Larrys. Determined to take a chance.
Labour and the Greens are Sallys, frightened and worried, but too intimidated by Larry to speak up.
On the plus side.The Green Party did call a conference on climate change at parliament. Which was boycotted by Shearer. This was a brave attempt to drag the reluctant Labour Party to the table.
They need to do more of the same.
But the Greens still refuse to make climate change a leading election issue.
And they are still determined to get seats in a Shearer cabinet, even though they know the cost will be to drop their opposition to deep sea oil drilling, fracking and Denniston. The three big things that symbolise BAU. And the three big things that the National and the Labour Parties are deathly committed to.
I have maintained and still maintain that if the Greens do go into coalition with Labour on these terms, they will be finished as an electoral force.
Is this title biased or what?
Only in the 3rd paragraph do we read…”The Green Party was the big winner, lifting from 9 per cent to 14. After several weeks of debate and protest over the GCSB Bill, National fell to 46 per cent – down three points since the May poll.”
Maybe headline should have been….
“Government’s spying policies bleed support to the Greens’.
The editor of the Herald must be paid a lot by the foreign corporates taking our country over.
FFS, Jenny, we need a review of the entire intelligence system in NZ before we can make informed decisions. You’ve been told this. As I said above, you’re just not listening.
Draco, don’t include me in your “we” thanks.
Don’t tell me I can’t make an informed decision right now without a bunch of parliamentary hacks telling me what information I am entitled to.
After Waihopai, Manning, Doctom, Snowden et al what more information do you need to condemn the whole surveillance state?
Liberal commentators have been forced to admit that surveillance is a euphemism for the political repression of all the blowback from numerous colonial wars and invasions. The US is creating Jihadis in its own suburbia for gods sake.
I don’t want a review by any of these professional politicians.
That’s just a formula for doing nothing on full pay for a year or two while our privacy is wiped and the the globe is destroyed.
I want a ‘repeal’ though its unlikely that Labour will make it into Government unless the other left parties can make up for its pathetic crawling to the establishment.
If Labour campaigned right now for Kill the Bill it might just create the support it needs to Kill the Act.
You’re talking about two issues. The bill that NACT are passing which needs to be repealed if not stopped and a review which sets out to clearly define the purpose of the intelligence apparatus and it’s limits. I agree that Labour should come out and say that they will repeal the legislation that NACT are presently passing and going to the status quo ante. We’ll still need that review as well so as to make a better intelligence apparatus.
Jenny, we need a review of the entire intelligence system in NZ before we can make informed decisions. You’ve been told this. As I said above, you’re just not listening.
Draco T Bastard
What’s to review?
You either support the mass surveillance of the population. or you don’t. Which is what this legislation is about.
Just like Shearer. Draco it is you, who are not listening.
The collecting, storing, and transmission of mass surveillance (metadata) on the general population by police and spy agencies needs to be made a criminal offence punishable by law.
David Shearer the leader of the Labour Party says that on becoming the government he will have “a review”. Not an inquiry mind you “a review”.
A review is not an inquiry. Most people know what an inquiry is, they know what a review is. Most people know “review” is code for “do nothing”.
The broad spectrum surveillance and collection and dissemination and transfer of metadata on every single New Zealander needs to be kept illegal.
There is no middle ground.
John Key;“because the alternative here would be either we don’t collect this data at all.”
David Cunliffe; “based upon what we have heard here tonight. I personally, and I am sure my caucus colleagues would be of the view that this legislation, must not, will not, and cannot stand.”
David Shearer; “We will have a review.”
There is no alternative, there is no middle ground. Key acknowledges it, Cunliffe does too. You either collect metadata, or you don’t.
There is no fence to sit on here Draco, no matter how much you claim it.
To support a review over an inquiry and/or a ban, is to normalise the collection of metadata.
Will a review stop the corruption?
Will a review identify the guilty?
Will a review identify the wronged?
Will a review stop the collection of metadata?
I think we can all agree that the answer to each of these questions is no it will not.
Therefore a review will be a farce and an insult to the intelligence of most New Zealanders.
Until David Shearer promises to reveal the identities of the 88 New Zealanders illegally spied on, so that we can all judge the validity of the need for this legislation, then his promised review will be nothing but a cover up for Business As Usual.
It probably needs a Royal Commission of Inquiry so that findings and recommendations aren’t buried and forgotten in some lowly status report and instead remain in perpetuity and can be referred to easily when future governments try to attack rights of citizens in the way Key and his mates are currently doing.
No he didn’t. He mentioned it, and probably supports it, but he didn’t call for it, he said that Shearer had. What Cunliffe clearly called for was the repeal of this legislation
Cunliffe said that the Leader of the Labour Party has promised a “thorough review”. He obviously wants to go further than the review promised by his leader. Because he followed this statement up, by saying this legislation “cannot stand”.
David Shearer yelled out “We will be having a review”.
The implication being, that’s all you’re gonna get Cunliffe. No, cannot stand nonsense.
The further implication is that David Shearer would be comfortable with allowing the collection of metadata spying on every New Zealander to stand.
And by his silence on the withholding of the information about the illegal spying on the 88 New Zealanders, David Shearer is quite happy to let this situation stand as well.
To convince the public that he can be trusted, David Shearer needs to make a statement that on taking charge of the secret services he will order them to release this information to those affected if they request it.
Simple, clear, honest.
Yet not being done.
P.S. TRP, Draco maybe you and other Shearer apologists might like to further try and justify Shearer’s refusal to commit to releasing the names of the 88?
I suppose you might say that releasing this information could reveal the identities of the spies responsible, thereby compromising their ability to continue their under cover work. Lawbreakers guilty of crimes against members of the public are not above the law just because they are members of the secret service. So what if it costs them their jobs. By allowing the secret police officers to remain above the law if they are discovered breaking it, is a very dangerous precedent to set.
If it does come to court, as many of these cases undoubtably will, these accused spies can ask for name suppression and I am sure that they will be granted it.
“David Shearer yelled out “We will be having a review”.
The implication being, that’s all you’re gonna get Cunliffe.”
You’re a slow learner, Jenny. You have miserably failed to back up your fantasy and the presence of hundreds of people in the hall who didn’t see any such exchange doesn’t appear to have put you off continuing to talk crap about Shearer and Cunliffe. Were you even there? Nah, I guess not, eh.
“P.S. TRP, Draco maybe you and other Shearer apologists might like to further try and justify Shearer’s refusal to commit to releasing the names of the 88?”
Nope, I doubt anyone is going to waste much time pissing on your feeble strawman.
The people who watched TV3 on 26 July saw and heard Shearer say “We will be having a review”, after Cunliffe’s speech. Go and watch TV3 news on that day.
The difference between me and you, Jenny, is that I know what the review is for.
The intelligence services aren’t going away and so a review of just what they’re for and what powers they have is a reasonable action. This is what Labour have promised. As I say above, I would be more comfortable if they promised to drop the legislation that NACT are presently putting through but either way I still support a review of the intelligence services.
You, on the other hand, are focusing solely upon a single bit of legislation. It is this focus that has you being completely wrong about what people are saying.
Until David Shearer promises to reveal the identities of the 88 New Zealanders illegally spied on,
If I was one of those 88 I’d prefer it if the government told me and then let me decide if I told the rest of NZ and didn’t just go out and tell the rest of NZ.
If I was one of those 88 I’d prefer it if the government told me and then let me decide if I told the rest of NZ and didn’t just go out and tell the rest of NZ.
Draco T Bastard
Goes without saying. At present if you suspect you are being illegally spied on, if you request this information from the government you are told you are not allowed to know.
Currently the government are shielding the lawbreakers from their victims. Draco do you personally support the continuation of this criminal government policy?
Has David Shearer promised to, as future head of the secret security services allow people to access this information about themselves?
Let us see who the GCSB are spying on. If as many suspect they are not terrorists at all and that innocent people are being illegally victimised then this needs to come out so that they can get some redress.
Onnit Paul. Utterly shameless blatancy. No mention forever of Roy Morgan – until it favours the Natsies last week. Deliberate distortion (Gran) and totally ignored (Stuff) of yesterday’s Left lift.
On the silver lining side, concrete confirmation of the “self-fulfilling prophesy” power of polls. A fact long ago twigged of course by the Continuous Propaganda Party, its organs and their bottomless pockets.
A comparative analysis of MSM coverage of blue-friendly polls versus red-friendly over the past few years would be staggering.
Lolz the pic the Herald used today has David Shearer looking like He is starring in the movie ”Revenge of the Lizard People”,
i don’t see the Colmar-Brunton painting Labour in that bad a position, the Green Party on 14% has the bloc level with National who have 1% more of support to lose which would make that Party pretty much unable to form a Government on those numbers,
Between them, the Mana Party and the dying Maori Party hold the other 3% of the left’s support if we view the electorate on the basis of 50/50,
i can see the Mana Party entering the 2015 Parliament with 3 MP’s and the Maori Party with zero, not a bad position to be in this far out from November 2014,
The interest now will be what sort of damage has been inflicted upon National from the sordid little and long running GCSB affair…
Labour has wasted far too much time on this nonsense, I don’t know if it’s just desperation and the Labour HQ thinks this is all they’ve got to attack National with or it’s just arrogance and the intellectuals in the party just can’t admit the strategy sucks and just persevere because of ego.
Ah here it is back from a weekend being ‘primed’ with the Farrar, Hooten, Blubber boy line that no-body cares about the deliberate unlawful accessing of private email and phone information by the Office of the Prime Minister,
Keep singing that song Boyo, a mere 1-2% of right wing voters need only ‘care’ deeply enough about the executive misuse of power to in November 2014 give you something that will really make you care,
The opposition parties, by objecting to the GCSB, are highlighting the now typical disregard that Nat govt shows toward democratic principles. This is what the opposition parties need to be doing, because it is vital that voters are aware that there is another, better, way of doing things. Hopefully NZers will see these options loud and clear and not be bamboozled by the slogans ‘that it isn’t important’.
I would be ripping my hair out even more than I already am if the opposition parties were not presenting strong objections to the GCSB; I would have thought there would be many others who feel the same way.
Thing is anyone with half a brain can see that Labour isn’t really against what is been proposed.
From what I’ve read the bill will pretty much stay in it’s current form if Labour gets into power, which makes all the shrieking and carry on is just a shitty attempt to try and smear Key and pin blame on him because some public servant fucked up again not because this bill is all that’s evil.
If you’re going to treat the voting population like idiots at least try to be clever about it.
That is the brilliant thing about strong opposition. If the opposition parties go on record strongly opposing a certain approach, then if they get into power and do the self-same thing they can be called on it.
If voters continue to vote for a party that shows severe disrespect toward democratic principles it is hard not to see them as idiots because they are giving up the safeguards they would have had, had they voted for parties that opposed such undemocratic actions.
For this reason, suspecting Labour is much the same as National is not a good reason to not vote against National at this point.
Politicians need to be given the clear message as to what is acceptable and what is not. What is going on at present is simply not acceptable and only a complete fool would continue to vote for such behaviour.
John Key’s aim here is not the security and defence of the realm… It is self-preservation.
This is a classic cover up. It has all the hallmarks:
i) Denials
ii) Stone-walling
iii) Misinformation
iv) Obfuscation
v) Scapegoating
John Key and his advisors are following, almost word for word, the Watergate script.
It’s by Winston so obviously don’t agree with everything he says but he does make some good points about the GCSB and other things so worth reading.
@DTB
Only just read the speech – yes it is interesting.
I rate Mr Peters very highly on the skills he has shown as an opposition MP. Before NZF got back the Greens were doing a fair job -yet were alone in this. The overall opposition was insipid. I view Winston as having had a huge impact on the strength of the opposition this term.
Key and Co. didn’t put all that effort years ago into discrediting NZ First for no good reason.
Relating to this I believe it is worth looking around to see where that type of effort is going now.
So far my search provides me with the result of Mr Hone Harawira. There seems to have been a inordinate amount of interest in condemning his family (around Waitangi, housing protest and the nephew’s court case)
Is that the Helen Clark who said this: ”If beneficiaries want to get working for Families payments they should get a job”,
As bad if not worse than the current leaders ‘roof-painting bene bludger’ speech,a sentence i could well imagine coming from the lips of Richardson or Shiply,
Refusing to uphold the principle tenet of the welfare state, that it is based around the greatest need, will always cause Labour trouble in the electorate until such time as it has shaken the last vestiges of the left of the party from it’s rump,
Mind you at 33% of polled support it could be considered to have mostly achieved the above…
bad12
Yes I come back to middle class Labourites with jobs and favourable future visions talking simplistic and unhelpful shit about beneficiaries, and so-called non-working. When Steve Maharey was in government I thought his background in social sciences would result in more intelligent and wide-ranging innovations in getting positive returns from the unemployed and beneficiary payouts, that were helpful to them and the country, but nothing startling shook the scene.
He didn’t seem to have absorbed or was capable of triumphing over the middle-class stodge with new ideas despite his closeness to the thinkers in the social policy field. We can notice the same lack of independent thought about our economy emanating from financial wizard Kay.
“Who will rid us of these turbulent politicians?” (and bring in some good ones dedicated to doing good policies for the people and the country that actually bring benefits, not vague or fiery promises that just leave a sweet hopeful smell of roses hanging in the air.)
Interesting possible fact got from google. About Henry 2, and his saying –
He initially said “Never again will I have to say “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest” (he had in fact had several of the previous archbishops murdered) …
That’s going a bit over the top I think!
Rosetinted, Lol, yes just slightly, over the top that is, considering to all extents and purposes we are in ‘a public place’, but, i do know the ‘feeling’,
My view for quite some time is that as ‘the left’ have hived off Labour in a continuing process under MMP Labour have along with its current support base ‘morphed’ into a middle class Party, how much of this is deliberate or a natural change is debatable,
What is of interest to me from the Colmar Brunton poll is that 2% of the fence sitters, registered voters who have previously refused to indicate a preference, have come down off of the fence in this poll and the Green Party seems to have picked up all these voters,
This would to a certain extent indicate the Prime Minister having labelled Labour/Green as the ‘devil beast’ has certainly had an effect upon the electorate, the opposite tho of what the Prime Minister intended,
The past couple of elections appear to me to have been fought mainly in the middle ground of the electorate, if as this poll indicates, those who have stayed at home whilst this middle class battle has run it’s course are now ‘seeing’ the necessity to become involved and the fact that such involvement as indicated by the Colmar Brunton has moved left to the Green Party is a great look for the left especially if the indicated trend continues…
bad12
Interesting thoughts. I referred to a discussion of Brit Labour recently, forgotten where. I’d have to look back over my comments archive, but so amazing that what we see in NZ parallels theirs so far away. Of course we have always followed Brit thinking and connections and education and politics so maybe not so amazing. But their progression or regression could perhaps be studied with an objective eye to give substance to theories of what has been behind the Labour movement’s change here.
(this was my reaction to her self-serving/past-glossing-over appearance on q & a..)
“…next up is helen clark..(and i am sorry..i have so many other questions for clark..(maybe starting with her govt. totally ignoring/marginalising the poorest/sickest for nine long years..
..and at the same time..so efficiently preparing the ground for the current pogrom against those poorest/sickest..
..that my mind glazes over at her current unctions..
..save to note she fully supports spooks/spooking..(but is anti-mass-trawling..)
(and of course after that wholesale ignoring of real poverty in new zealand for those nine long years..that she now is at the un..’fighting-poverty’..
..must cause irony-overdose/gastric-reflux in most watchers..)..”
Ad +1….and they should be sucking up all the Kiwi unemployed and training them on the job in the reconstruction of Christchurch…instead of importing labour
+ 1 Colonial Viper …..Youth unemployment is a tragedy !…..which will keep ricocheting for generations!…… It should be a number one priority.
I think the Germans have a lot to teach us on this….Kids from high school go directly into apprenticeships or internships …..so they can sort out what they want to do….eg get training in a line of work they like or become a university student…..I don’t think they are allowed to be unemployed …same in Switzerland
Massive turnaround in the one news poll for Labour and Shearer and a big hit for National which means Shearers showing what he can do, hes the right leader for Labour
I noted, in the last speech of his I heard on the radio, that he was no longer hesitating on hitting the decisive word in the sentence and was showing more conviction. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ may be a cliche, but there is some merit in that statement. Whether it will be enough is another matter ..
Yeah you have to give David Shearer a couple of brownie points when His current speech making is compared with His earlier efforts,
What i perceived from His ummm aaaah delivery’s after His ascension to the position of leader was that He was ‘self editing’, stopping mid-sentence to seek a ‘better’ word to use in the point He was making,
Obviously the media trainers have been at work and to a large extent corrected this bad habit, now all’s we need do is convince His advisers that the only required reading for the leader of the Labour Party is ‘Labour during the Norman Kirk years’ and we might actually get some decent policy from that Party which addresses the ‘bread and butter’ issues of those in our society that survive on the least amount of income…
Shearer just needs a little more time (like maybe when it comes to the election debates with John Key) to really show the people of NZ what hes made of 🙂
Probably won’t matter, Key will likely have banned TV and newspapers by then. Or hopefully people will awake and see the conman Key for what he is, all those used car sales types seem to have free-flowing bullshit in abundance.
[lprent: But Santi got banned until after the next election. I guess there could be a resumption of the strange RWNJ penis extender technique that involves getting banned from TS? Young shrivelled bucks do some really stupid things in the pursuit of coups. ]
This weekend 24 US embassies closed their doors because there was believable information that they were in eminent danger from a terrorist attack.
Problem is that this information seems to have sprung from an unlikely source. The mst important Qaeda leader going by the name of Ayman al Zawahiri ! Here is the link to the NZ News Website where I found this.
The same leader also alleged that the coup against Mursi the Egyptian Muslim brotherhood president was engineered by the US on the 3 August. Here is the link to the Guardian article.
Problem is that according to the MSM this Al Qaeda leader was killed during a drone attack on 9/12 2012.
See why I’m having trouble with these eminent terror attack announcements?
OOPPSS. Or it seems that Prism can speak to those who have died, Can they ask my Mother where she hid the recipes for the tiny cakes, that go with a cup of tea.
Um… It’s dudette for you and try this and know that reading is what I do very well but you are right that was the wrong article to link to as it didn’t detail the entire history of Zawahiri’s many reported deaths.
The trouble with following Shearer’s delivery to the media etc with bated breath is that once again it’s pinning hopes on getting any Labour government in, as if that is all there is to be concerned about.
What we are already getting is just more bene bashing coming from the left. In government it would be more self-satisfied ‘We’re running the country right and keeping it on an even keel’ stuff, and being happy with showing positive trends in the measurements of policies set in place with right wing advantages.
I was looking at a 2005 NZ Listener and the list of top 50 powerful people. Cullen was near the top, and mentioned was his 67c ‘chewing gum’ tax cut. He and Helen Clark didn’t have enough nous to institute something like sliding inflation indices on tax levels. When do the good people who are not comfortably off, get considered. Answer not often.
Such complacency about Labour’s vulnerable constituents will continue going by Shearer’s comments about the guy on the roof, and there must be more in the pot. In a previous Labour government Trevor Mallard went round slashing small rural schools and then that was followed by cuts to bus transport by him or the next lot and so on. It’s just a progression of lost services and rights and lost economic conditions and as confusing as that TV series Lost where everything seemed fluid and uncertain.
The program is run jointly with other agencies including Australia’s Defence Signals Directorate, and New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau.
Greenwald said low level analysts can via systems like XKeyscore “listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents. And it’s all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst.”
And of course no need to worry in the slightest about sharing said transcripts with a joint agency. Or its head.
I didn’t think much of it and went about my merry way roaming the net. Amongst my first visits after I installed the plug in was the daily blog and to my surprise the Pink Floyd song “The dark side of the moon” the alert for NSA monitoring started to play!
I closed the page and went to the Standard blog where again the song started to play.
I again closed the page and this time I opened the Kiwiblog page and the Whaleoil page both pages opened without any problems and no dark side of the moon!
The Daily Blog and The Standard are two “left” wing blogs. The Standard is the third biggest blog in New Zealand for those of you who don’t know it and the Daily Blog is a blog run by prominent activist and journalist Martyn Bradbury to which a whole slew of left wing journalists and writers contribute.
Kiwiblog and Whaleoil are the two biggest blogs in New Zealand and both are closely aligned with the National party and aligned with the right wing.
Which begs the question: Are the Standard and the Daily blog monitored by the NSA and if so why?
Actually, I have to agree with TheConformist here. The code of the program isn’t reliable ie it doesn’t perform the task it says it’s meant to. There is a clear distinction between your computer and a website hosted elsewhere. It appears that you’re trying to deter people from viewing the two main leftwing blogs in New Zealand.
@travellerev: Interesting. Our similar topic posts crossed. Try opening the site I posted below: PACC PAMS 13 even if just for the love of Pink Floyd….
@David H on thread below, this site tries to install something on your computer, so don’t click through. A friend used my computer to find information about countries attending the conference and must have run the installation – I’m running my malware now. However, it looks like the site is down now.
The way the NSA do their monitoring (sweeping up full copies of internet traffic from fibre optic junctions) should be completely invisible to the end user machine.
Yes.
But I was thinking about the low-level wannabe types playing spy games rather than the NSA
The site looks like a twelve-year old group of boys playing around with WordPress rather than a US or NZ Defence Force production. Incongruous with an international conference for army chiefs.
Surely there should be delays that would indicate interference. Any telecommunications service that nows its latency should be able to detect such interference?
It takes a while for the Addon to sound the alerts when you open a page indicating it is interacting with something before it decides there is the possibility of NSA monitoring. For those of you curious about the addon here is the link for you to try it out yourself.
If you want to disable it again go to your addons under the tools dropdown menu and click disable.
Here is the link to the code of the addon for those of you so inclined and by invitation of the author of the addon Justin Binder. Seems fair to me.
It should but is it? Or is the addon reacting to something else on the main servers but before you go into that let me confess to you that with regards to software, code and other things that go bing in computers I am completely blond! (Although I did learn to put them together when I was a couple of decennia younger)
All I did was convey what happened. I have no opinion on what happened other than that we are all monitored (not necessarily in a personal way but more in a “lets get all the info and store it somewhere until someone becomes troublesome and we need to deal to that person” kind of way) and have been as a matter of course for years and that all they try to do now is to make it lawful so that they can act when needed within a legal framework so that the dotcoms of this world have no legal recourse anymore.
History reveals that most governments are so inclined and even more so in uncertain economic times and the internet is simply to good an opportunity to waste! It’s nothing personal, it’s just business as usual.
travellerev .. using your link, have a look at the comments on the app.
It is using sites that are publicly named as being monitored by Prism et al … still interesting in terms of the left wing blogs, but it is supposed to be for fun ….
Here for you from your link …
by Ken Saunders on June 17, 2013 · permalink
If you are thinking about using this add-on, keep these things in mind.
1) It’s for fun, and not some sort of magical NSA/Prism blocking add-on.
2) Purchase Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album if you want to pause, mute, etc, the songs.
3) Here’s a list of the companies, http://www.pcworld.com/article/2040991/report-nsa-prism-program-spied-on-americans-emails-searches.html
4) Firefox button > Add-ons > Extensions > Dark Side Of The Prism > Disable, disables this add-on or you can choose Remove.
This is a brilliant and funny add-on!Thanks for developing it.
First of all I stated that this is just a claim made. I tried it out on a lot of sites though and it seems pretty consistent. And no it is not an add on to block NSA monitoring and neither does it purport to be all accurate either. Funny though how it sounded when accessing two left wing blogs in far away New Zealand and not Kiwiblog or Whaleoil two rightwing blogs closely aligned to National. It doesn’t sound with newspapers but it did sound on Max Keiser’s blog who is a fervent anti-banker RT TV Host.
It didn’t sound with Veterans today but it did sound when I opened the Global research site dedicated to studying globalism and the power elite. It also sounded when I opened Washington’s blog but not when I opened Zero hedge blog.
The fact that this application didn’t ‘alert’ when you visited Kiwiblog and Whaleoil is evidence that it wouldn’t be picking up NSA monitored sites. If I was an intelligence operative I would be trying to garner information from popular sites to ascertain what the mood of the politicised section of a country is. Kiwiblog and Whaleoil are the two most popular political blogs in the country. They would be prime targets for gathering intelliegence on NZ.
Gosman I’ve been reading the tripe you post for a while now and I can say with the utmost confidence that there is no chance of you ever doing anything involving intelligence.
“It is using sites that are publicly named as being monitored by Prism et al”
A link to that list of publicly named sites would be nice. I’m sure Martin Bradbury and Iprent would be delighted to know they are on a public list of Prism monitored sites!
Nope no list other than a few companies who are known to cooperate with the Prism program. Daily blog, the Standard, Kiwiblog, Whaleoil are all blogs based on wordpress blogging software but some of them are tagged ad someof them are not. Still does not explain why the two left wing blogs were singled out by the add on while the two right wing ones were not.
I would have thought the answer to your question was pretty obvious.
People who are concerned about the welfare of people (as opposed to the economic interests of the very wealthy) are now considered traitors to the interests that spy networks are working for.
This is very clear given the official reaction to Mr Snowden’s actions.
Which begs the question: Are the Standard and the Daily blog monitored by the NSA and if so why?
Maybe
For a laugh (its why I come here)
[lprent: I just assume that the site is monitored by someone(s). What I’m interested in is making it hard for material from the site to be able to be used in anything legal without requiring the means to be disclosed (take some time and think the logic through). ]
The NZDF is hosting the PACC PAM (?) conference in Auckland this year.
Searching for which countries belong to this group, and who will be attending – results in not a lot on Google. Although PACC PAM, links back to the US Defence Force via a couple of other organisations.
However, this bizarre site PACC PAMS 13 – Army Conference Agenda comes up in regards to the NZ conference this year. Has random NZ photos and strange layout. Looks like a site from a bad 70s spy movie, and heads up, you will get a couple of automatic messages if you click through.
A friend wanted to use my computer to find out the list of countries, and is Google-challenged. They must have clicked through the installation prompt – will run my malware programs to double check.
The rest of the site – which I will not return to after deleting whatever has been loaded – is pictures of the skytower, NZ currency, people at a restaurant etc. Just checked if the installation message comes up for me – and the site is now down.
1) Alanz …4 August 5.57pm (under “Friday Document Dump” August 2nd)…Stated i)that the media should keep digging because there are 3 key, pivotal issues not covered in the document dump.ii) Also there are nationally grave matters not yet public …
2) exitlane… 3 August 4.47pm ( under “Andrea Vance’s Privacy Breach” August 3rd)…. Stated that under the GCSB ( refs. Snowden / “NZL” docs / re Xkeystore ) phone calls and email content anywhere can be accessed with a few keystrokes without a warrant….Hence John Key would have known everything about Dunne and Vance even without the help of Parliamentary services !!!!…..sooner Dunne realises that this and what he is thinking of voting for are tied up inextricably ,the better)
My Question:
Is Dunne complicit in a cover up ….when Key had everything already?…..Does Dunne know this?….If so , Dunne’s squealing about Parliamentary breaches of his privacy are rather spurious…and it makes him a lot more complicit and tricky in the implementation of the GCSB bill than what many thought
Of course he is. Because he knows Key has seen all the emails. Key has him over a barrel. Jesus, have we ever had such a nasty piece of work for a prime-minister. It also shows Dunne is weak as dishwater.
@ Anne…yes but Dunne seems to be trying to keep the two issues separate …and it is also the case in the media ….ie Parliament breaches are being kept separate from GCSB breaches on privacy( ie John Key having access to the emails already via GCSB.) It is as if they want to keep the bigger picture of the GCSB and what it is doing under the carpet.
…..So Dunne is ‘outraged’ by Parliamentary services and one head has rolled there….But Dunne also wants to vote for the GCSB bill when he knows the bigger picture is that the Prime Minister had all this information independently via GCSB……( I feel sorry for the guy that got rolled unnecessarily)
And whereas before I just thought Dunne was being blackmailed and felt a wee bit sorry for him…..now I think he is a tricky Dicky
Probably everyone on this site knows this already…but I have just realised this could be the case….it sort of makes the outrage at the illegal spying on the 88 rather redundant….. everyone has been spied on…in which case why isnt the media saying so?…and why did the guy in Parliament services fall on his sword?
2. To have responded once the report was released.
Had Vance done 2. she would have implicated Dunne because in those emails Dunne has to have shot himself in the foot. Dunne must be feeling happy with himself that the chance of Vance releasing his emails is now remote as she would be branded a hypocrite if she did.
@ KJT…..Yes but did Key get it via Parliamentary services or independently via the GCSB…..even before a law has been passed ( with Dunne’s help) making it legal?
How the rich countries can screw the poor ones. Many consulates in Brit are being ordered to close their bank accounts under regulations to control money laundering. This comes from high law instigated by some high-minded countries with impeccable financial trading. Some countries are having difficulty finding ways to trade internationally.
I remember hearing a story about Rwanda I think, being left on the outer when the world financial system refused them membership. They determined to conduct some business in cash, one of their dignitaries took off from home with a caseful, and I don’t know if that transaction was ever completed, but I heard that the dignitary settled in I think France. Probably opened a consulate there in his home. So some good may have come out of the move, who knows. Nothing is straightforward in politics and finance.
Years ago, in Reagan’s time there was a bank that dealt illegally in funds connected with drug running venture capital, and though this was known it was allowed to remain in business, and was used to pay for arms used in some overseas destabilising action. Standards of probity have to be seen to remain in place, so that the exception can prove the rule I imagine. Some whistle blowing investigative journalist found out about it. Otherwise we would never have known, and probably most don’t anyway. I just was curious to check out a second hand book. If from now on there aren’t any accessible documents in hard copy extant, that will happen less.
Banking/debt based money supply/transaction systems are being used as a way to control and contain entire countries. If you are in the “in crowd” good for you, you get privileged access to these systems and your country (and government) can continue to survive; if you are not – then all bets are off the table, and if it means that tens of millions of your people have to suffer economic deprivation and hunger in the process, ah well too bad.
I was trying to get details on Steffan Browning , Greens who made a good point this morning that NZ is too dependent on one business type – ie dairy.
And from google going through Kiwiblog I got a message that – something to the server chain is incomplete and something is not registered and do I accept and I said no. Don’t know what that was about. Sounds like the vehicle needs its spark plugs cleaned!
Gleaned from Radionz Rural and Business News headings:
MPI under-staffed to cope with China trade
The Ministry for Primary Industries admitted that despite a tripling in New Zealand’s trade with China over the past five years, it did not have anywhere near enough staff in the ministry nor in China to cope with that escalating trade relationship.
Online tool to map stock theft
Farmers who have lost stock to rustlers have a new way of hitting back at them.
Signs of resistance to varroa bee mite treatments – assoc
The National Beekeepers Association says the battle against the varroa mite may cost almost $1 billion over the next three decades.
Chorus gets further debt facility
Chorus has secured further debt facilities, which the company says will support its funding needs to rollout of the ultra fast broadband over the next six years.
Hills Flooring in liquidation
Family-owned carpet retailer Hills Flooring is in liquidation, blaming the failure of the construction company Mainzeal and the tough retail market.
These are matters that should have oversight by ordinary NZs.
* Hills Flooring – established NZ company being lost – why?
* Chorus – is an arm of Telecom isn’t it? And its got further debt facility – from whom and why? Was that debt facility available to other contenders?
* Varroa bee mite – Bees and beekeepers – are they getting proper support and tax incentives and grants to pay for the costs of this terrible outcome of increased import risks without the concomitant spending on increased biosecurity?
* Help for farmers to combat stock theft – sounds good. The rural side, apart just from dairy, need support through proper services from government.
* MPI being understaffed to meet the needs that increased trade with Asia and China brings is just another of NZs failures to follow through on initiatives and new policies which need extra work, with increased money spent on them. This is to ensure that the money that is hoped to be made, and the business and contacts generated, are properly handled and treasured.
And that involves more than giving fast track visas to big spenders from Asian countries to come here and. hopefully, offload. That might be more profitable than before if countries trying to appear highly principled financially shut down on bank accounts for possibly dodgy dealers. Just the thing for a fresh-faced keen little country like us. We could welcome these poor refugees from the nasty big wide world financial system!
* Embassy accounts being closed by HSBC bank
HSBC, the biggest bank in Britain is reported to have given dozens of diplomatic missions in London 60 days to move their accounts elsewhere.
Debt ridden, and sabotaged primary sector – Should help bring NZ to its knees in short time,
Swelling national debt, private debt, spiraling living costs , decreasing incomes!, government books loaded with off balance sheet derivatives, just like the banks, all of them!
Nah she’s going sweet mate, the recovery is really just about to kick!
And now they are spinning spinning spinning through this fabulous land!!!
You have to wonder if the Slippery little Shyster we have as Prime Minister considers us all to be just plain dumb,
His claim now is that He did not know until Friday that the Dunne/Vance emails had been handed over to His Office/the Henry Inquiry from Parliamentary Services/the IT ‘contractor’ just takes spin to a whole new level,
The Prime Minister seems here to be attempting to dodge charges from the Opposition in the House that He the Prime Minister has mislead the Parliament,
Does the Slippery little Shyster live in some form of airless bubble,along with all of His executive officials occupying their own secular bubbles, under a rock each in other words miles apart in a vast desert without the communications of this modern world to disturb their meditations,
This claim from the Prime Minister is simply one serious piece of bullshit too far, at a time when the Henry Inquiry, the Chief executive of the Prime Minister’s own office, and the Prime Ministers own Chief of Staff all KNEW of the emails and KNEW that the emails had been obtained from Parliamentary Services/the IT ‘contractor’ this Prime Minister wishes us all to believe he knew nothing,
Now that is the Sergeant Shultz defence if i ever heard it, i know nothing nothing you hear, the contention that He, the Prime Minister only found out about the Dunne/Vance emails would have us believe that the document dump on Friday from the Prime Ministers own office of over 100 pages was all material that He had never once read,
Dodge,duck,dive, what the Prime Minister really ‘means’ is not that He had not the slightest notion until Friday that the Dunne/Vance emails had been released to the Henry Inquiry/Office of the Prime Minister, what He really ‘means’ is that he found out on the Friday that ‘we’ knew that He had reached the emails of Dunne/Vance and were discussing this openly here at the Standard on the Thursday night befor the document dump occurred from His office on the Friday,
it is not the prime minister’s chief executive of the prime ministers office that should be offering to resign here, there’s something rotten right at the core of this particular apple and it is the Prime Minister exhibiting all those signs of rot, it is Him who should be offering the resignation…
Just say what you mean instead of beating around the bush bad12. John Key has lied! His office, namely the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, has instructed Parliamentary Service to intercept three moths worth of communications between a journalist, Andrea Vance, and a Minister of the Crown, Peter Dunce. It is likely that this “contractor” supposedly employed by Parliamentary Service is actually the GCSB who was instructed by no other that John Key himself.
Despite that blatant breach of privacy, which has resulted in him resigning his Ministerial portfolios, Peter Dunce is going to support a bill that legalizes similar surveillance on us all. However, he will not allow his communications in this instance to be released to the public. 2+2 really does equal 4. What is the bouffant hiding? It is likely only his own scalp. Such is the way of politicians I suppose.
Conveniently for John Key there is now a more major story to take the attention off his administration. The Prime Minister can now appear the hero, admonishing Fonterra for not informing the public that their dairy supplies could be contaminated with BOTULISM. A delay that has only taken + 15 months to occur. Saved by the bell I suppose from some negative publicity…some negative spying allegations. Who really cares that their privacy now means nothing and that the scientist are also scratching their heads about how exactly this latest (convenient) sideshow can be real?
How much is it really costing New Zealand to protect John Keys credibility I wonder?
LOLZ, me beat around the bush, now that is funny, i think that you are wrong when you posit that the ‘IT contractor’ is likely to be the GCSB,
There is a distinction between the two arms of intelligence,(hah intelligence here being an oxymoron in terminology), what i have is the sneaking suspicion that this ‘contractor’ to Parliamentary Services is simply a front company for the SIS,
As far as i can ascertain it is the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Chief Executive Andrew Kibblewhite who is probably carrying less guilt in the whole process of the initial obtaining of the Dunne/Vance phone/email records and Kibblewhite is simply being used as a convenient excuse, the toilet if you will, down which the Prime Minister is attempting to flush His knowledge of the illegally gained phone/email records,
It appears from what is known that Eaggleson, the Prime Ministers chief of Staff was the point man fronting the Parliamentary Service on behalf of the Prime Minister, and if threats were made in order to force Parliamentary Services to hand over anything, then Eaggleson would have been issuing such threats,
Did Andrew Kibblewhite know the full extent of the illegal information gathering occurring on behalf of the Henry Inquiry, you bet, along with everyone else on the Beehives 9th floor obviously including Eaggleson who strong armed Parliamentary Services into agreeing to the release,
Why if it is in fact the SIS acting in drag as a private IT contractor to Parliamentary Services go to all the trouble of strong-arming Parliamentary Services into ‘releasing’ the Dunne/Vance phone/email records???,
To provide a layer of protection to the 9th floor of the Beehive, the Prime Ministers Office, should the s**t, as it did, get caught in the ventilation system and the smell get spread far and wide, and, should my ‘sneaking suspicion’ that the Parliamentary Services ‘IT contractor’ is the SIS using a private company as a ‘front’ to monitor the communications into and out of the Parliaments precinct Parliamentary Services were to be shouldered with the blame creating a smokescreen within the furore where the ‘IT contractors’ actions were minimalized thus attracting scant attention,
i doubt Dunne, who’s every word must be suspect in this whole sordid little tale will appear befor the Privileges Committee hearing later this month and further doubt that any one of substance from the Prime Ministers office will either,
The Prime Minister suggesting that no-one, not Kibblewhite, not Eaggleson, who obviously had full knowledge of the email data, informed Him of this beggars belief and is simply one large slab of bullshit to far from the ever Slippery Prime Minister…
I ran across a recent essay from The Brothers Krynn, which attempts to map common horror monsters onto the Seven Deadly Sins: https://canadianculturecorner.substack.com/p/horror-monsters-and-vice My interest, however, is not in the meat of the piece, but rather the opening paragraph: It is an interesting fact that in recent decades, Vampires have ...
Buzz from the Beehive Transport Minister Simeon Brown dutifully issued advice to all road users to keep safe on our roads during the Easter weekend. He encouraged them to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. ...
Oliver Hartwich writes – New Zealanders recently learned about a new feature film. It will be about former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – and taxpayers will subsidise it to the tune of NZ$800,000. Ardern had nothing personally to do with either the film or the subsidy. But her government’s ...
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
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Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
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New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
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Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
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For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
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This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
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Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
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There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
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Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
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This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
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Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
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The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
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Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/08/04/global-warming-the-folly-of-certainty/
In this case we are the helpless passengers in the back, and our parliamentarians are the driver.
If Larry refuses to slow down, then it is up to us the passengers, to do everything we can to make sure he listens to us.
Tonight at 7pm in Auckland, probably the biggest ever meeting called by Generation Zero on climate change is due to take place. Held in the Owen Glen complex in the Fisher &Paykel Auditorium, Auckland University, Wynyard Street. Make sure you are there.
The National government are Larrys. Determined to take a chance.
Labour and the Greens are Sallys, frightened and worried, but too intimidated by Larry to speak up.
FIFY, the Greens are speaking up – you’re just not listening.
On the plus side.The Green Party did call a conference on climate change at parliament. Which was boycotted by Shearer. This was a brave attempt to drag the reluctant Labour Party to the table.
They need to do more of the same.
But the Greens still refuse to make climate change a leading election issue.
And they are still determined to get seats in a Shearer cabinet, even though they know the cost will be to drop their opposition to deep sea oil drilling, fracking and Denniston. The three big things that symbolise BAU. And the three big things that the National and the Labour Parties are deathly committed to.
I have maintained and still maintain that if the Greens do go into coalition with Labour on these terms, they will be finished as an electoral force.
The Herald isn’t even pretending anymore.
What a headline…. ‘Foreigner ban fails to lift Labour” and what a picture of Shearer.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10908241
Is this title biased or what?
Only in the 3rd paragraph do we read…”The Green Party was the big winner, lifting from 9 per cent to 14. After several weeks of debate and protest over the GCSB Bill, National fell to 46 per cent – down three points since the May poll.”
Maybe headline should have been….
“Government’s spying policies bleed support to the Greens’.
The editor of the Herald must be paid a lot by the foreign corporates taking our country over.
….while Labour and United Future lobby for a “review”.
FFS, Jenny, we need a review of the entire intelligence system in NZ before we can make informed decisions. You’ve been told this. As I said above, you’re just not listening.
Draco, don’t include me in your “we” thanks.
Don’t tell me I can’t make an informed decision right now without a bunch of parliamentary hacks telling me what information I am entitled to.
After Waihopai, Manning, Doctom, Snowden et al what more information do you need to condemn the whole surveillance state?
Liberal commentators have been forced to admit that surveillance is a euphemism for the political repression of all the blowback from numerous colonial wars and invasions. The US is creating Jihadis in its own suburbia for gods sake.
I don’t want a review by any of these professional politicians.
That’s just a formula for doing nothing on full pay for a year or two while our privacy is wiped and the the globe is destroyed.
I want a ‘repeal’ though its unlikely that Labour will make it into Government unless the other left parties can make up for its pathetic crawling to the establishment.
If Labour campaigned right now for Kill the Bill it might just create the support it needs to Kill the Act.
/facepalm
You’re talking about two issues. The bill that NACT are passing which needs to be repealed if not stopped and a review which sets out to clearly define the purpose of the intelligence apparatus and it’s limits. I agree that Labour should come out and say that they will repeal the legislation that NACT are presently passing and going to the status quo ante. We’ll still need that review as well so as to make a better intelligence apparatus.
What’s to review?
You either support the mass surveillance of the population. or you don’t. Which is what this legislation is about.
Just like Shearer. Draco it is you, who are not listening.
The collecting, storing, and transmission of mass surveillance (metadata) on the general population by police and spy agencies needs to be made a criminal offence punishable by law.
David Shearer the leader of the Labour Party says that on becoming the government he will have “a review”. Not an inquiry mind you “a review”.
A review is not an inquiry. Most people know what an inquiry is, they know what a review is. Most people know “review” is code for “do nothing”.
The broad spectrum surveillance and collection and dissemination and transfer of metadata on every single New Zealander needs to be kept illegal.
There is no middle ground.
John Key;“because the alternative here would be either we don’t collect this data at all.”
David Cunliffe; “based upon what we have heard here tonight. I personally, and I am sure my caucus colleagues would be of the view that this legislation, must not, will not, and cannot stand.”
David Shearer; “We will have a review.”
There is no alternative, there is no middle ground. Key acknowledges it, Cunliffe does too. You either collect metadata, or you don’t.
There is no fence to sit on here Draco, no matter how much you claim it.
To support a review over an inquiry and/or a ban, is to normalise the collection of metadata.
Will a review stop the corruption?
Will a review identify the guilty?
Will a review identify the wronged?
Will a review stop the collection of metadata?
I think we can all agree that the answer to each of these questions is no it will not.
Therefore a review will be a farce and an insult to the intelligence of most New Zealanders.
Until David Shearer promises to reveal the identities of the 88 New Zealanders illegally spied on, so that we can all judge the validity of the need for this legislation, then his promised review will be nothing but a cover up for Business As Usual.
Cunliffe called for a review, too, but that’s not consistent with your worldview, so lets just leave that bit out, eh?
A review is exactly what’s needed. NZ needs to decide what kind of intelligence services it requires for the future and start again from there.
It probably needs a Royal Commission of Inquiry so that findings and recommendations aren’t buried and forgotten in some lowly status report and instead remain in perpetuity and can be referred to easily when future governments try to attack rights of citizens in the way Key and his mates are currently doing.
No he didn’t. He mentioned it, and probably supports it, but he didn’t call for it, he said that Shearer had. What Cunliffe clearly called for was the repeal of this legislation
Read the transcript.
Cunliffe said that the Leader of the Labour Party has promised a “thorough review”. He obviously wants to go further than the review promised by his leader. Because he followed this statement up, by saying this legislation “cannot stand”.
David Shearer yelled out “We will be having a review”.
The implication being, that’s all you’re gonna get Cunliffe. No, cannot stand nonsense.
The further implication is that David Shearer would be comfortable with allowing the collection of metadata spying on every New Zealander to stand.
And by his silence on the withholding of the information about the illegal spying on the 88 New Zealanders, David Shearer is quite happy to let this situation stand as well.
To convince the public that he can be trusted, David Shearer needs to make a statement that on taking charge of the secret services he will order them to release this information to those affected if they request it.
Simple, clear, honest.
Yet not being done.
P.S. TRP, Draco maybe you and other Shearer apologists might like to further try and justify Shearer’s refusal to commit to releasing the names of the 88?
I suppose you might say that releasing this information could reveal the identities of the spies responsible, thereby compromising their ability to continue their under cover work. Lawbreakers guilty of crimes against members of the public are not above the law just because they are members of the secret service. So what if it costs them their jobs. By allowing the secret police officers to remain above the law if they are discovered breaking it, is a very dangerous precedent to set.
If it does come to court, as many of these cases undoubtably will, these accused spies can ask for name suppression and I am sure that they will be granted it.
“David Shearer yelled out “We will be having a review”.
The implication being, that’s all you’re gonna get Cunliffe.”
You’re a slow learner, Jenny. You have miserably failed to back up your fantasy and the presence of hundreds of people in the hall who didn’t see any such exchange doesn’t appear to have put you off continuing to talk crap about Shearer and Cunliffe. Were you even there? Nah, I guess not, eh.
“P.S. TRP, Draco maybe you and other Shearer apologists might like to further try and justify Shearer’s refusal to commit to releasing the names of the 88?”
Nope, I doubt anyone is going to waste much time pissing on your feeble strawman.
The people who watched TV3 on 26 July saw and heard Shearer say “We will be having a review”, after Cunliffe’s speech. Go and watch TV3 news on that day.
“… saw and heard Shearer say …”
So not yelling at Cunliffe, then. Thanks for the back up, Jaymam.
Can someone please just make her stop with the stupid?
This is why a review is needed Jenny:
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/04/11/breaking-worse-than-we-thought-rebecca-kitteridge-and-the-new-community-of-spooks/
The difference between me and you, Jenny, is that I know what the review is for.
The intelligence services aren’t going away and so a review of just what they’re for and what powers they have is a reasonable action. This is what Labour have promised. As I say above, I would be more comfortable if they promised to drop the legislation that NACT are presently putting through but either way I still support a review of the intelligence services.
You, on the other hand, are focusing solely upon a single bit of legislation. It is this focus that has you being completely wrong about what people are saying.
If I was one of those 88 I’d prefer it if the government told me and then let me decide if I told the rest of NZ and didn’t just go out and tell the rest of NZ.
Goes without saying. At present if you suspect you are being illegally spied on, if you request this information from the government you are told you are not allowed to know.
Currently the government are shielding the lawbreakers from their victims. Draco do you personally support the continuation of this criminal government policy?
Has David Shearer promised to, as future head of the secret security services allow people to access this information about themselves?
Let us see who the GCSB are spying on. If as many suspect they are not terrorists at all and that innocent people are being illegally victimised then this needs to come out so that they can get some redress.
Jenny, you have repeatedly called for the names of the 88 to be made public. Have you changed your mind now?
Onnit Paul. Utterly shameless blatancy. No mention forever of Roy Morgan – until it favours the Natsies last week. Deliberate distortion (Gran) and totally ignored (Stuff) of yesterday’s Left lift.
On the silver lining side, concrete confirmation of the “self-fulfilling prophesy” power of polls. A fact long ago twigged of course by the Continuous Propaganda Party, its organs and their bottomless pockets.
A comparative analysis of MSM coverage of blue-friendly polls versus red-friendly over the past few years would be staggering.
Lolz the pic the Herald used today has David Shearer looking like He is starring in the movie ”Revenge of the Lizard People”,
i don’t see the Colmar-Brunton painting Labour in that bad a position, the Green Party on 14% has the bloc level with National who have 1% more of support to lose which would make that Party pretty much unable to form a Government on those numbers,
Between them, the Mana Party and the dying Maori Party hold the other 3% of the left’s support if we view the electorate on the basis of 50/50,
i can see the Mana Party entering the 2015 Parliament with 3 MP’s and the Maori Party with zero, not a bad position to be in this far out from November 2014,
The interest now will be what sort of damage has been inflicted upon National from the sordid little and long running GCSB affair…
Paul +1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjAyazqtQj8
what a great show
A passable wielder of the sonic screwdriver.
Anyone else miss Helen Clark right now?
Asked on National Radio yesterday what would be her highest priority if she were PM of the coutnry right now, she said, immediately: “Unemployment.”
For the amount of comparatively trivial bull that all parties are immersed in right now, she cut through it.
Agree
GSCB= beltway, no one cares.
Labour has wasted far too much time on this nonsense, I don’t know if it’s just desperation and the Labour HQ thinks this is all they’ve got to attack National with or it’s just arrogance and the intellectuals in the party just can’t admit the strategy sucks and just persevere because of ego.
Edit: don’t agree with the missing Clarkula bit.
Ah here it is back from a weekend being ‘primed’ with the Farrar, Hooten, Blubber boy line that no-body cares about the deliberate unlawful accessing of private email and phone information by the Office of the Prime Minister,
Keep singing that song Boyo, a mere 1-2% of right wing voters need only ‘care’ deeply enough about the executive misuse of power to in November 2014 give you something that will really make you care,
Another 9 on the opposition benches…
+1 Bad12
The opposition parties, by objecting to the GCSB, are highlighting the now typical disregard that Nat govt shows toward democratic principles. This is what the opposition parties need to be doing, because it is vital that voters are aware that there is another, better, way of doing things. Hopefully NZers will see these options loud and clear and not be bamboozled by the slogans ‘that it isn’t important’.
I would be ripping my hair out even more than I already am if the opposition parties were not presenting strong objections to the GCSB; I would have thought there would be many others who feel the same way.
Thing is anyone with half a brain can see that Labour isn’t really against what is been proposed.
From what I’ve read the bill will pretty much stay in it’s current form if Labour gets into power, which makes all the shrieking and carry on is just a shitty attempt to try and smear Key and pin blame on him because some public servant fucked up again not because this bill is all that’s evil.
If you’re going to treat the voting population like idiots at least try to be clever about it.
@ BM,
That is the brilliant thing about strong opposition. If the opposition parties go on record strongly opposing a certain approach, then if they get into power and do the self-same thing they can be called on it.
If voters continue to vote for a party that shows severe disrespect toward democratic principles it is hard not to see them as idiots because they are giving up the safeguards they would have had, had they voted for parties that opposed such undemocratic actions.
For this reason, suspecting Labour is much the same as National is not a good reason to not vote against National at this point.
Politicians need to be given the clear message as to what is acceptable and what is not. What is going on at present is simply not acceptable and only a complete fool would continue to vote for such behaviour.
Why Politics Matters – POLS 111 Lecture
It’s by Winston so obviously don’t agree with everything he says but he does make some good points about the GCSB and other things so worth reading.
@DTB
Only just read the speech – yes it is interesting.
I rate Mr Peters very highly on the skills he has shown as an opposition MP. Before NZF got back the Greens were doing a fair job -yet were alone in this. The overall opposition was insipid. I view Winston as having had a huge impact on the strength of the opposition this term.
Yep. Winston has lifted the class of the Opposition (which as you say the Greens were performing well at although alone) to a brand new level.
Key and Co. didn’t put all that effort years ago into discrediting NZ First for no good reason.
Key and Co. didn’t put all that effort years ago into discrediting NZ First for no good reason.
Relating to this I believe it is worth looking around to see where that type of effort is going now.
So far my search provides me with the result of Mr Hone Harawira. There seems to have been a inordinate amount of interest in condemning his family (around Waitangi, housing protest and the nephew’s court case)
Ah, so the GCSB bills are hurting National and so the astroturfers have been given their orders to try to divert from it.
+1 DtB
Is that the Helen Clark who said this: ”If beneficiaries want to get working for Families payments they should get a job”,
As bad if not worse than the current leaders ‘roof-painting bene bludger’ speech,a sentence i could well imagine coming from the lips of Richardson or Shiply,
Refusing to uphold the principle tenet of the welfare state, that it is based around the greatest need, will always cause Labour trouble in the electorate until such time as it has shaken the last vestiges of the left of the party from it’s rump,
Mind you at 33% of polled support it could be considered to have mostly achieved the above…
bad12
Yes I come back to middle class Labourites with jobs and favourable future visions talking simplistic and unhelpful shit about beneficiaries, and so-called non-working. When Steve Maharey was in government I thought his background in social sciences would result in more intelligent and wide-ranging innovations in getting positive returns from the unemployed and beneficiary payouts, that were helpful to them and the country, but nothing startling shook the scene.
He didn’t seem to have absorbed or was capable of triumphing over the middle-class stodge with new ideas despite his closeness to the thinkers in the social policy field. We can notice the same lack of independent thought about our economy emanating from financial wizard Kay.
“Who will rid us of these turbulent politicians?” (and bring in some good ones dedicated to doing good policies for the people and the country that actually bring benefits, not vague or fiery promises that just leave a sweet hopeful smell of roses hanging in the air.)
Interesting possible fact got from google. About Henry 2, and his saying –
He initially said “Never again will I have to say “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest”
(he had in fact had several of the previous archbishops murdered) …
That’s going a bit over the top I think!
Rosetinted, Lol, yes just slightly, over the top that is, considering to all extents and purposes we are in ‘a public place’, but, i do know the ‘feeling’,
My view for quite some time is that as ‘the left’ have hived off Labour in a continuing process under MMP Labour have along with its current support base ‘morphed’ into a middle class Party, how much of this is deliberate or a natural change is debatable,
What is of interest to me from the Colmar Brunton poll is that 2% of the fence sitters, registered voters who have previously refused to indicate a preference, have come down off of the fence in this poll and the Green Party seems to have picked up all these voters,
This would to a certain extent indicate the Prime Minister having labelled Labour/Green as the ‘devil beast’ has certainly had an effect upon the electorate, the opposite tho of what the Prime Minister intended,
The past couple of elections appear to me to have been fought mainly in the middle ground of the electorate, if as this poll indicates, those who have stayed at home whilst this middle class battle has run it’s course are now ‘seeing’ the necessity to become involved and the fact that such involvement as indicated by the Colmar Brunton has moved left to the Green Party is a great look for the left especially if the indicated trend continues…
bad12
Interesting thoughts. I referred to a discussion of Brit Labour recently, forgotten where. I’d have to look back over my comments archive, but so amazing that what we see in NZ parallels theirs so far away. Of course we have always followed Brit thinking and connections and education and politics so maybe not so amazing. But their progression or regression could perhaps be studied with an objective eye to give substance to theories of what has been behind the Labour movement’s change here.
“..Anyone else miss Helen Clark right now?..”…
..really..?..)
(this was my reaction to her self-serving/past-glossing-over appearance on q & a..)
“…next up is helen clark..(and i am sorry..i have so many other questions for clark..(maybe starting with her govt. totally ignoring/marginalising the poorest/sickest for nine long years..
..and at the same time..so efficiently preparing the ground for the current pogrom against those poorest/sickest..
..that my mind glazes over at her current unctions..
..save to note she fully supports spooks/spooking..(but is anti-mass-trawling..)
(and of course after that wholesale ignoring of real poverty in new zealand for those nine long years..that she now is at the un..’fighting-poverty’..
..must cause irony-overdose/gastric-reflux in most watchers..)..”
phillip ure..
Ad +1….and they should be sucking up all the Kiwi unemployed and training them on the job in the reconstruction of Christchurch…instead of importing labour
Absolutely. I want a Labour Party ready to recommit to policies of full employment, starting with full youth employment.
+ 1 Colonial Viper …..Youth unemployment is a tragedy !…..which will keep ricocheting for generations!…… It should be a number one priority.
I think the Germans have a lot to teach us on this….Kids from high school go directly into apprenticeships or internships …..so they can sort out what they want to do….eg get training in a line of work they like or become a university student…..I don’t think they are allowed to be unemployed …same in Switzerland
Massive turnaround in the one news poll for Labour and Shearer and a big hit for National which means Shearers showing what he can do, hes the right leader for Labour
I noted, in the last speech of his I heard on the radio, that he was no longer hesitating on hitting the decisive word in the sentence and was showing more conviction. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ may be a cliche, but there is some merit in that statement. Whether it will be enough is another matter ..
Yeah you have to give David Shearer a couple of brownie points when His current speech making is compared with His earlier efforts,
What i perceived from His ummm aaaah delivery’s after His ascension to the position of leader was that He was ‘self editing’, stopping mid-sentence to seek a ‘better’ word to use in the point He was making,
Obviously the media trainers have been at work and to a large extent corrected this bad habit, now all’s we need do is convince His advisers that the only required reading for the leader of the Labour Party is ‘Labour during the Norman Kirk years’ and we might actually get some decent policy from that Party which addresses the ‘bread and butter’ issues of those in our society that survive on the least amount of income…
Winston chanelling Santi, not a pretty site.
Shearer just needs a little more time (like maybe when it comes to the election debates with John Key) to really show the people of NZ what hes made of 🙂
Probably won’t matter, Key will likely have banned TV and newspapers by then. Or hopefully people will awake and see the conman Key for what he is, all those used car sales types seem to have free-flowing bullshit in abundance.
Oh good the old “hopefully the people will wake up” line, maybe the people have woken up already…
From observation, that seems very highly unlikely.
Winston is trying hard to take Santi’s place.
[lprent: But Santi got banned until after the next election. I guess there could be a resumption of the strange RWNJ penis extender technique that involves getting banned from TS? Young shrivelled bucks do some really stupid things in the pursuit of coups. ]
This weekend 24 US embassies closed their doors because there was believable information that they were in eminent danger from a terrorist attack.
Problem is that this information seems to have sprung from an unlikely source. The mst important Qaeda leader going by the name of Ayman al Zawahiri ! Here is the link to the NZ News Website where I found this.
The same leader also alleged that the coup against Mursi the Egyptian Muslim brotherhood president was engineered by the US on the 3 August. Here is the link to the Guardian article.
Problem is that according to the MSM this Al Qaeda leader was killed during a drone attack on 9/12 2012.
See why I’m having trouble with these eminent terror attack announcements?
OOPPSS. Or it seems that Prism can speak to those who have died, Can they ask my Mother where she hid the recipes for the tiny cakes, that go with a cup of tea.
Or were they talking to Achmed??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go
“Problem is that according to the MSM this Al Qaeda leader was killed during a drone attack on 9/12 2012”
Dude, that article isn’t saying al-Zawahiri was killed. The man identified as a future successor to him was. Learn to read.
Um… It’s dudette for you and try this and know that reading is what I do very well but you are right that was the wrong article to link to as it didn’t detail the entire history of Zawahiri’s many reported deaths.
The trouble with following Shearer’s delivery to the media etc with bated breath is that once again it’s pinning hopes on getting any Labour government in, as if that is all there is to be concerned about.
What we are already getting is just more bene bashing coming from the left. In government it would be more self-satisfied ‘We’re running the country right and keeping it on an even keel’ stuff, and being happy with showing positive trends in the measurements of policies set in place with right wing advantages.
I was looking at a 2005 NZ Listener and the list of top 50 powerful people. Cullen was near the top, and mentioned was his 67c ‘chewing gum’ tax cut. He and Helen Clark didn’t have enough nous to institute something like sliding inflation indices on tax levels. When do the good people who are not comfortably off, get considered. Answer not often.
Such complacency about Labour’s vulnerable constituents will continue going by Shearer’s comments about the guy on the roof, and there must be more in the pot. In a previous Labour government Trevor Mallard went round slashing small rural schools and then that was followed by cuts to bus transport by him or the next lot and so on. It’s just a progression of lost services and rights and lost economic conditions and as confusing as that TV series Lost where everything seemed fluid and uncertain.
Labour doesn’t have any vulnerable constituents. Not these days.
What about Shearer, I hear hes pretty vulnerable…
XKeyscore. Intriguing name, eh what?
Intriguing guff too, worth reminding ourselves:
The program is run jointly with other agencies including Australia’s Defence Signals Directorate, and New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau.
Greenwald said low level analysts can via systems like XKeyscore “listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents. And it’s all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst.”
And of course no need to worry in the slightest about sharing said transcripts with a joint agency. Or its head.
Yes, but can they open .pst ???
This took less time to find, than to type it up, So the answer is YES, they can open a .pst file
http://download.cnet.com/PST-Viewer/3000-2369_4-75289424.html
http://www.nucleustechnologies.com/pst-viewer.html
And just in case they had a Mac
https://answerqi.com/asq/1666/answermail/how-can-i-open-a-pst-file-without-microsoft-outlook-on-a-mac
thx david .. but maybe I shd have put a smiley face after it ….
OK this is worrying me:
Today I installed a firefox extension. The name of the extension is “Dark side of the prism” and purports to be able to alert users on the possibility that the NSA is monitoring websites they are visiting.
I didn’t think much of it and went about my merry way roaming the net. Amongst my first visits after I installed the plug in was the daily blog and to my surprise the Pink Floyd song “The dark side of the moon” the alert for NSA monitoring started to play!
I closed the page and went to the Standard blog where again the song started to play.
I again closed the page and this time I opened the Kiwiblog page and the Whaleoil page both pages opened without any problems and no dark side of the moon!
The Daily Blog and The Standard are two “left” wing blogs. The Standard is the third biggest blog in New Zealand for those of you who don’t know it and the Daily Blog is a blog run by prominent activist and journalist Martyn Bradbury to which a whole slew of left wing journalists and writers contribute.
Kiwiblog and Whaleoil are the two biggest blogs in New Zealand and both are closely aligned with the National party and aligned with the right wing.
Which begs the question: Are the Standard and the Daily blog monitored by the NSA and if so why?
Sounds like complete bullshit.
Your usual verbal elegance again I see!
Actually, I have to agree with TheConformist here. The code of the program isn’t reliable ie it doesn’t perform the task it says it’s meant to. There is a clear distinction between your computer and a website hosted elsewhere. It appears that you’re trying to deter people from viewing the two main leftwing blogs in New Zealand.
No J, I am just conveying what happened when I installed a firefox addon claiming to perform a certain action. And I asked the question: if… why…?
Nothing more and nothing less.
I also clicked on other sites such as yours and mine. Not a sausage! No bells and whistles and no Dark side of the moon!
@travellerev: Interesting. Our similar topic posts crossed. Try opening the site I posted below:
PACC PAMS 13 even if just for the love of Pink Floyd….
@David H on thread below, this site tries to install something on your computer, so don’t click through. A friend used my computer to find information about countries attending the conference and must have run the installation – I’m running my malware now. However, it looks like the site is down now.
The way the NSA do their monitoring (sweeping up full copies of internet traffic from fibre optic junctions) should be completely invisible to the end user machine.
[lprent: That is my understanding as well. ]
Yes.
But I was thinking about the low-level wannabe types playing spy games rather than the NSA
The site looks like a twelve-year old group of boys playing around with WordPress rather than a US or NZ Defence Force production. Incongruous with an international conference for army chiefs.
Another site like it is Warren Buffett’s massively rich investment thing Berkshire Hathaway. You wouldn’t think it makes USD22billion a year.
When you’re so big you don’t need to care about fripperies – like the Queen mucking around in wellies and old landrovers.
Surely there should be delays that would indicate interference. Any telecommunications service that nows its latency should be able to detect such interference?
It takes a while for the Addon to sound the alerts when you open a page indicating it is interacting with something before it decides there is the possibility of NSA monitoring. For those of you curious about the addon here is the link for you to try it out yourself.
If you want to disable it again go to your addons under the tools dropdown menu and click disable.
Here is the link to the code of the addon for those of you so inclined and by invitation of the author of the addon Justin Binder. Seems fair to me.
It should but is it? Or is the addon reacting to something else on the main servers but before you go into that let me confess to you that with regards to software, code and other things that go bing in computers I am completely blond! (Although I did learn to put them together when I was a couple of decennia younger)
All I did was convey what happened. I have no opinion on what happened other than that we are all monitored (not necessarily in a personal way but more in a “lets get all the info and store it somewhere until someone becomes troublesome and we need to deal to that person” kind of way) and have been as a matter of course for years and that all they try to do now is to make it lawful so that they can act when needed within a legal framework so that the dotcoms of this world have no legal recourse anymore.
History reveals that most governments are so inclined and even more so in uncertain economic times and the internet is simply to good an opportunity to waste! It’s nothing personal, it’s just business as usual.
travellerev .. using your link, have a look at the comments on the app.
It is using sites that are publicly named as being monitored by Prism et al … still interesting in terms of the left wing blogs, but it is supposed to be for fun ….
Here for you from your link …
by Ken Saunders on June 17, 2013 · permalink
If you are thinking about using this add-on, keep these things in mind.
1) It’s for fun, and not some sort of magical NSA/Prism blocking add-on.
2) Purchase Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album if you want to pause, mute, etc, the songs.
3) Here’s a list of the companies, http://www.pcworld.com/article/2040991/report-nsa-prism-program-spied-on-americans-emails-searches.html
4) Firefox button > Add-ons > Extensions > Dark Side Of The Prism > Disable, disables this add-on or you can choose Remove.
This is a brilliant and funny add-on!Thanks for developing it.
First of all I stated that this is just a claim made. I tried it out on a lot of sites though and it seems pretty consistent. And no it is not an add on to block NSA monitoring and neither does it purport to be all accurate either. Funny though how it sounded when accessing two left wing blogs in far away New Zealand and not Kiwiblog or Whaleoil two rightwing blogs closely aligned to National. It doesn’t sound with newspapers but it did sound on Max Keiser’s blog who is a fervent anti-banker RT TV Host.
It didn’t sound with Veterans today but it did sound when I opened the Global research site dedicated to studying globalism and the power elite. It also sounded when I opened Washington’s blog but not when I opened Zero hedge blog.
The fact that this application didn’t ‘alert’ when you visited Kiwiblog and Whaleoil is evidence that it wouldn’t be picking up NSA monitored sites. If I was an intelligence operative I would be trying to garner information from popular sites to ascertain what the mood of the politicised section of a country is. Kiwiblog and Whaleoil are the two most popular political blogs in the country. They would be prime targets for gathering intelliegence on NZ.
Gosman I’ve been reading the tripe you post for a while now and I can say with the utmost confidence that there is no chance of you ever doing anything involving intelligence.
ROFL. Intelligence in you?
“It is using sites that are publicly named as being monitored by Prism et al”
A link to that list of publicly named sites would be nice. I’m sure Martin Bradbury and Iprent would be delighted to know they are on a public list of Prism monitored sites!
travellerev .. there is a link in my post 9.4 above to that very list .. point #3
Nope no list other than a few companies who are known to cooperate with the Prism program. Daily blog, the Standard, Kiwiblog, Whaleoil are all blogs based on wordpress blogging software but some of them are tagged ad someof them are not. Still does not explain why the two left wing blogs were singled out by the add on while the two right wing ones were not.
More than likely it is to do with who the sites are hosted with than the specific site.
@ Travellerev,
I would have thought the answer to your question was pretty obvious.
People who are concerned about the welfare of people (as opposed to the economic interests of the very wealthy) are now considered traitors to the interests that spy networks are working for.
This is very clear given the official reaction to Mr Snowden’s actions.
Which begs the question: Are the Standard and the Daily blog monitored by the NSA and if so why?
Maybe
For a laugh (its why I come here)
[lprent: I just assume that the site is monitored by someone(s). What I’m interested in is making it hard for material from the site to be able to be used in anything legal without requiring the means to be disclosed (take some time and think the logic through). ]
Typical taker, shame you never supply any laughs though, just ridiculous cheerleader slogans supplied to you by your shonkey idol.
Thats not true, I’ve supplied plenty of laughs (both deliberately and inadvertantly)
The NZDF is hosting the PACC PAM (?) conference in Auckland this year.
Searching for which countries belong to this group, and who will be attending – results in not a lot on Google. Although PACC PAM, links back to the US Defence Force via a couple of other organisations.
However, this bizarre site PACC PAMS 13 – Army Conference Agenda comes up in regards to the NZ conference this year. Has random NZ photos and strange layout. Looks like a site from a bad 70s spy movie, and heads up, you will get a couple of automatic messages if you click through.
When i tried it, it wanted to install something on my computer. That was me gone. But from what i saw, it was an amateurish looking site.
@David H. Thanks for the heads up.
A friend wanted to use my computer to find out the list of countries, and is Google-challenged. They must have clicked through the installation prompt – will run my malware programs to double check.
The rest of the site – which I will not return to after deleting whatever has been loaded – is pictures of the skytower, NZ currency, people at a restaurant etc. Just checked if the installation message comes up for me – and the site is now down.
Interesting Posts:
1) Alanz …4 August 5.57pm (under “Friday Document Dump” August 2nd)…Stated i)that the media should keep digging because there are 3 key, pivotal issues not covered in the document dump.ii) Also there are nationally grave matters not yet public …
2) exitlane… 3 August 4.47pm ( under “Andrea Vance’s Privacy Breach” August 3rd)…. Stated that under the GCSB ( refs. Snowden / “NZL” docs / re Xkeystore ) phone calls and email content anywhere can be accessed with a few keystrokes without a warrant….Hence John Key would have known everything about Dunne and Vance even without the help of Parliamentary services !!!!…..sooner Dunne realises that this and what he is thinking of voting for are tied up inextricably ,the better)
My Question:
Is Dunne complicit in a cover up ….when Key had everything already?…..Does Dunne know this?….If so , Dunne’s squealing about Parliamentary breaches of his privacy are rather spurious…and it makes him a lot more complicit and tricky in the implementation of the GCSB bill than what many thought
Of course he is. Because he knows Key has seen all the emails. Key has him over a barrel. Jesus, have we ever had such a nasty piece of work for a prime-minister. It also shows Dunne is weak as dishwater.
@ Anne…yes but Dunne seems to be trying to keep the two issues separate …and it is also the case in the media ….ie Parliament breaches are being kept separate from GCSB breaches on privacy( ie John Key having access to the emails already via GCSB.) It is as if they want to keep the bigger picture of the GCSB and what it is doing under the carpet.
…..So Dunne is ‘outraged’ by Parliamentary services and one head has rolled there….But Dunne also wants to vote for the GCSB bill when he knows the bigger picture is that the Prime Minister had all this information independently via GCSB……( I feel sorry for the guy that got rolled unnecessarily)
And whereas before I just thought Dunne was being blackmailed and felt a wee bit sorry for him…..now I think he is a tricky Dicky
Probably everyone on this site knows this already…but I have just realised this could be the case….it sort of makes the outrage at the illegal spying on the 88 rather redundant….. everyone has been spied on…in which case why isnt the media saying so?…and why did the guy in Parliament services fall on his sword?
“tricky Dicky” lol.
Vance was fed by Dunne and Vance had a choice to,
1. Not release the report.
2. To have responded once the report was released.
Had Vance done 2. she would have implicated Dunne because in those emails Dunne has to have shot himself in the foot. Dunne must be feeling happy with himself that the chance of Vance releasing his emails is now remote as she would be branded a hypocrite if she did.
I am sure Key has something on what Dunne, done!
@ KJT…..Yes but did Key get it via Parliamentary services or independently via the GCSB…..even before a law has been passed ( with Dunne’s help) making it legal?
How the rich countries can screw the poor ones. Many consulates in Brit are being ordered to close their bank accounts under regulations to control money laundering. This comes from high law instigated by some high-minded countries with impeccable financial trading. Some countries are having difficulty finding ways to trade internationally.
I remember hearing a story about Rwanda I think, being left on the outer when the world financial system refused them membership. They determined to conduct some business in cash, one of their dignitaries took off from home with a caseful, and I don’t know if that transaction was ever completed, but I heard that the dignitary settled in I think France. Probably opened a consulate there in his home. So some good may have come out of the move, who knows. Nothing is straightforward in politics and finance.
Years ago, in Reagan’s time there was a bank that dealt illegally in funds connected with drug running venture capital, and though this was known it was allowed to remain in business, and was used to pay for arms used in some overseas destabilising action. Standards of probity have to be seen to remain in place, so that the exception can prove the rule I imagine. Some whistle blowing investigative journalist found out about it. Otherwise we would never have known, and probably most don’t anyway. I just was curious to check out a second hand book. If from now on there aren’t any accessible documents in hard copy extant, that will happen less.
Banking/debt based money supply/transaction systems are being used as a way to control and contain entire countries. If you are in the “in crowd” good for you, you get privileged access to these systems and your country (and government) can continue to survive; if you are not – then all bets are off the table, and if it means that tens of millions of your people have to suffer economic deprivation and hunger in the process, ah well too bad.
And we’re off – owner of a web host that aides internet anonymity arrested.
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rlo0uu
https://openwatch.net/i/200/anonymous-web-host-freedom-hosting-owner-arrested
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/fbi-bids-to-extradite-largest-childporn-dealer-on-planet-29469402.html
Boom!
I was trying to get details on Steffan Browning , Greens who made a good point this morning that NZ is too dependent on one business type – ie dairy.
And from google going through Kiwiblog I got a message that – something to the server chain is incomplete and something is not registered and do I accept and I said no. Don’t know what that was about. Sounds like the vehicle needs its spark plugs cleaned!
Gleaned from Radionz Rural and Business News headings:
MPI under-staffed to cope with China trade
The Ministry for Primary Industries admitted that despite a tripling in New Zealand’s trade with China over the past five years, it did not have anywhere near enough staff in the ministry nor in China to cope with that escalating trade relationship.
Online tool to map stock theft
Farmers who have lost stock to rustlers have a new way of hitting back at them.
Signs of resistance to varroa bee mite treatments – assoc
The National Beekeepers Association says the battle against the varroa mite may cost almost $1 billion over the next three decades.
Chorus gets further debt facility
Chorus has secured further debt facilities, which the company says will support its funding needs to rollout of the ultra fast broadband over the next six years.
Hills Flooring in liquidation
Family-owned carpet retailer Hills Flooring is in liquidation, blaming the failure of the construction company Mainzeal and the tough retail market.
These are matters that should have oversight by ordinary NZs.
* Hills Flooring – established NZ company being lost – why?
* Chorus – is an arm of Telecom isn’t it? And its got further debt facility – from whom and why? Was that debt facility available to other contenders?
* Varroa bee mite – Bees and beekeepers – are they getting proper support and tax incentives and grants to pay for the costs of this terrible outcome of increased import risks without the concomitant spending on increased biosecurity?
* Help for farmers to combat stock theft – sounds good. The rural side, apart just from dairy, need support through proper services from government.
* MPI being understaffed to meet the needs that increased trade with Asia and China brings is just another of NZs failures to follow through on initiatives and new policies which need extra work, with increased money spent on them. This is to ensure that the money that is hoped to be made, and the business and contacts generated, are properly handled and treasured.
And that involves more than giving fast track visas to big spenders from Asian countries to come here and. hopefully, offload. That might be more profitable than before if countries trying to appear highly principled financially shut down on bank accounts for possibly dodgy dealers. Just the thing for a fresh-faced keen little country like us. We could welcome these poor refugees from the nasty big wide world financial system!
* Embassy accounts being closed by HSBC bank
HSBC, the biggest bank in Britain is reported to have given dozens of diplomatic missions in London 60 days to move their accounts elsewhere.
“a good point this morning that NZ is too dependent on one business type – ie dairy.”
There’s always tourism… until the big oil shock/next GFC hits.
“Beyond the Shroud”
For those who want to watch this but do not have Sky TV or access to Face TV, the documentary will be streamed live from 8pm on Scoop.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/multimedia.html
Addition to the above.
It will also be streamed on Live.TheDailyBlog and LiveNews.co.nz.
Yes. Must see viewing.
Zero Hedge: Kiwi Plunges, 15% of Exports at Stake
Congrats NZ, your very own story on Zero Hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-04/kiwi-plunges-china-russia-suspend-new-zealand-powder-milk-exports-15-gdp-stake
Debt ridden, and sabotaged primary sector – Should help bring NZ to its knees in short time,
Swelling national debt, private debt, spiraling living costs , decreasing incomes!, government books loaded with off balance sheet derivatives, just like the banks, all of them!
Nah she’s going sweet mate, the recovery is really just about to kick!
OBR
http://www.maggiebarry.co.nz/index.php?/archives/225-Finance-and-Expenditure-Select-Committee-Deputy-Chair-Role.html
Sorry about the link location – TV Presenter Barry, deputy chair of the above!
Oh dear!
And now they are spinning spinning spinning through this fabulous land!!!
You have to wonder if the Slippery little Shyster we have as Prime Minister considers us all to be just plain dumb,
His claim now is that He did not know until Friday that the Dunne/Vance emails had been handed over to His Office/the Henry Inquiry from Parliamentary Services/the IT ‘contractor’ just takes spin to a whole new level,
The Prime Minister seems here to be attempting to dodge charges from the Opposition in the House that He the Prime Minister has mislead the Parliament,
Does the Slippery little Shyster live in some form of airless bubble,along with all of His executive officials occupying their own secular bubbles, under a rock each in other words miles apart in a vast desert without the communications of this modern world to disturb their meditations,
This claim from the Prime Minister is simply one serious piece of bullshit too far, at a time when the Henry Inquiry, the Chief executive of the Prime Minister’s own office, and the Prime Ministers own Chief of Staff all KNEW of the emails and KNEW that the emails had been obtained from Parliamentary Services/the IT ‘contractor’ this Prime Minister wishes us all to believe he knew nothing,
Now that is the Sergeant Shultz defence if i ever heard it, i know nothing nothing you hear, the contention that He, the Prime Minister only found out about the Dunne/Vance emails would have us believe that the document dump on Friday from the Prime Ministers own office of over 100 pages was all material that He had never once read,
Dodge,duck,dive, what the Prime Minister really ‘means’ is not that He had not the slightest notion until Friday that the Dunne/Vance emails had been released to the Henry Inquiry/Office of the Prime Minister, what He really ‘means’ is that he found out on the Friday that ‘we’ knew that He had reached the emails of Dunne/Vance and were discussing this openly here at the Standard on the Thursday night befor the document dump occurred from His office on the Friday,
it is not the prime minister’s chief executive of the prime ministers office that should be offering to resign here, there’s something rotten right at the core of this particular apple and it is the Prime Minister exhibiting all those signs of rot, it is Him who should be offering the resignation…
Just say what you mean instead of beating around the bush bad12. John Key has lied! His office, namely the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, has instructed Parliamentary Service to intercept three moths worth of communications between a journalist, Andrea Vance, and a Minister of the Crown, Peter Dunce. It is likely that this “contractor” supposedly employed by Parliamentary Service is actually the GCSB who was instructed by no other that John Key himself.
Despite that blatant breach of privacy, which has resulted in him resigning his Ministerial portfolios, Peter Dunce is going to support a bill that legalizes similar surveillance on us all. However, he will not allow his communications in this instance to be released to the public. 2+2 really does equal 4. What is the bouffant hiding? It is likely only his own scalp. Such is the way of politicians I suppose.
Conveniently for John Key there is now a more major story to take the attention off his administration. The Prime Minister can now appear the hero, admonishing Fonterra for not informing the public that their dairy supplies could be contaminated with BOTULISM. A delay that has only taken + 15 months to occur. Saved by the bell I suppose from some negative publicity…some negative spying allegations. Who really cares that their privacy now means nothing and that the scientist are also scratching their heads about how exactly this latest (convenient) sideshow can be real?
How much is it really costing New Zealand to protect John Keys credibility I wonder?
“It is not usual to test dairy products for the presence of Clostridium botulinum.”
That is interesting.
LOLZ, me beat around the bush, now that is funny, i think that you are wrong when you posit that the ‘IT contractor’ is likely to be the GCSB,
There is a distinction between the two arms of intelligence,(hah intelligence here being an oxymoron in terminology), what i have is the sneaking suspicion that this ‘contractor’ to Parliamentary Services is simply a front company for the SIS,
As far as i can ascertain it is the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Chief Executive Andrew Kibblewhite who is probably carrying less guilt in the whole process of the initial obtaining of the Dunne/Vance phone/email records and Kibblewhite is simply being used as a convenient excuse, the toilet if you will, down which the Prime Minister is attempting to flush His knowledge of the illegally gained phone/email records,
It appears from what is known that Eaggleson, the Prime Ministers chief of Staff was the point man fronting the Parliamentary Service on behalf of the Prime Minister, and if threats were made in order to force Parliamentary Services to hand over anything, then Eaggleson would have been issuing such threats,
Did Andrew Kibblewhite know the full extent of the illegal information gathering occurring on behalf of the Henry Inquiry, you bet, along with everyone else on the Beehives 9th floor obviously including Eaggleson who strong armed Parliamentary Services into agreeing to the release,
Why if it is in fact the SIS acting in drag as a private IT contractor to Parliamentary Services go to all the trouble of strong-arming Parliamentary Services into ‘releasing’ the Dunne/Vance phone/email records???,
To provide a layer of protection to the 9th floor of the Beehive, the Prime Ministers Office, should the s**t, as it did, get caught in the ventilation system and the smell get spread far and wide, and, should my ‘sneaking suspicion’ that the Parliamentary Services ‘IT contractor’ is the SIS using a private company as a ‘front’ to monitor the communications into and out of the Parliaments precinct Parliamentary Services were to be shouldered with the blame creating a smokescreen within the furore where the ‘IT contractors’ actions were minimalized thus attracting scant attention,
i doubt Dunne, who’s every word must be suspect in this whole sordid little tale will appear befor the Privileges Committee hearing later this month and further doubt that any one of substance from the Prime Ministers office will either,
The Prime Minister suggesting that no-one, not Kibblewhite, not Eaggleson, who obviously had full knowledge of the email data, informed Him of this beggars belief and is simply one large slab of bullshit to far from the ever Slippery Prime Minister…