Mr Key’s office has previously confirmed Mr Sabin told Mr Eagleson directly a day or two before Labour informed Mr Eagleson.
That wasn’t when they found out though, was it. I wonder whether it was a day. Or two. A day or two certainly means at least a week in National Party English.
In any event, they found out before the 2011 election.
Why do they want to look so donkey deep in this? Just how much involvement has the National Party had in Sabin’s activities?
Think of johnny as the goalkeeper, they have to get past a well resourced defense of audrey, clare, armstrong, editorial authors, tvnz, radio rantland etc etc who love to protect the brand.
we are lead to believe the NBR as Hooton outlined that they were aware of issue/s surrounding Sabin dating back to 2011, then using your ‘better’ judgment as PM wouldn’t you personally sit down with Sabin to get clarification that no more trouble can be expected. When you also consider Key had short listed Sabin for a Ministers position, and was about to appoint him to chair the law & order select committee.
I find Key’s hands off approach negligent, or just too unbelievable for Kiwi’s to be expected to swallow. If no plausible reasons are forthcoming in parliament tomorrow, and given the seriousness of the matter a full independent inquiry into corruption should take place.
Yes dirty play within the National Party. Joyce contracted Sabin & son to do a number on Collins who is his only real challenger to take over from Key. She is just too tough and has a shrewd legal mind, batting the milk saga away with relative ease. It wasn’t till Brook Sabin went after her like a blood hound did Key finally feel safe to clip her wings. He also culled some of her MP fan base sending a signal to others by demoting Maurice Williamson one of her biggest fans.
So in the end Collins will be back sooner than people thought possible, after she goes after Joyce with a little help from her rightwing friends. This is the start of the self destruct of the Nat’s. Collins will be leaking all sorts of hits on Key and Joyce and anyone else that stands in her way.
ACT smells blue blood and are looking to capitalise, isn’t this correct Gosman?
Did you spot the glaring contradiction in that article?
“Mr Macnaught said teachers who wanted hard copies of a specific book would be able to borrow them from the National Library, through a request sent by the school library.”
This is completely contradicted by
“Lending changes
• The National Library will this year stop allowing teachers and school librarians to request non-fiction books on a particular topic.”
I applaud them going to digital copies but to drop the hard copy format before everyone has digital access in entrenching the digital divide. Of course, once we take in to account National’s ongoing attacks on education creating a less educated populace does seem to be their goal.
Wonder when the government is going to have to pay for its appalling mismanagement of the economy.
Putting all its bets on dairy starting to look like a really stupid idea.
Still, we’ve got a ‘rock star’ economy. What a joke!
‘Deutsche Bank is painting a grim picture of the impact of dry conditions on the dairy industry, predicting it could be worse than the 2012-13 drought.
Two years ago global prices soared by 40 per cent because of Chinese demand, boosting New Zealand dairy farmers as they moved out of drought, but the bank does not believe this scenario will play out again.’
Feathering the nest, then off to Hawaii with his lifetime salary for being a PM for over 5 years, just to top up his already overflowing coffers. Lovely photo album to keep him company if he gets lonely.
One to particularly watch out for is statins. They nearly drove my old man round the bend; he seemed to be going crazy but when Psych Services for the Elderly tested him and did a scan, nothing was revealed out of the ordinary.
My mother had started following horror stories about statins and I did some internet research. We took him off them and in about a month all his erratic/crazy behaviour and paranoid delusions stopped.
There’s a massive amount of anecdotal evidence, and slowly-accumulating research evidence, that statins can have very serious side effects. Some people seem to handle them Ok, but a lot of people – abut 12 out of 15 cases I know of personally – where people had all kinds of side effects ranging from kidney problems to paranoid delusions.
They don’t really do much for most people’s cholesterol, plus there is now plenty of evidence that cholesterol in and of itself isn’t such a problem.
When my mother, brother and I decided to take the old man off statins his doctor wasn’t at all pleased. But other doctors and various medical professionals I’ve spoken to since are much more up-to-date with trhe problems re statins.
Keep up the good work on this phill my mum was sick as recently, the doctor had here on a cocktail of drugs after research on the net she discovered that they were a bad mix and she didn’t really need one of them.
When she told the the doc he rolled his eye’s and muttered something about the internet then said stop taking it if you want. She’s much improved without it.( the step fathers kidneys nearly stopped awhile back as well due to the amount of voltaren they had him on while he waited for a bionic bit.)
Funeral Insurance is a very very profitable business for Cigna.
It is lousy value for those who buy the products: when contributions are discontinued the Insurer holds the cream; people are less likely to “claim” in their younger years.
Every day I see Michael Jones use his legend status to front the very heavy advertising aimed at poorer Pacific Island families. Keith Quinn has also fronted Cigna ads.
Michael Jones is failing in his leadership responsibilities by fronting these ads.
I’ve long thought that any endorsement by a celebrity needs to devote 1/6th of the advert time / space (either in print or on radio / tv, minimum 5 seconds) to the celebrity plainly saying:
“I have been paid $xxxx by [company] to appear in this advertisement”.
In the case of TV, it would require a head-and-shoulders close up of the celebrity speaking directly to camera without any music playing.
As far as I can make out, insurance itself is fraud. They take the money and then try not to pay out and this happens in NZ as well as I was reading in an article the other day (which I can’t find now – think it was in the NZHerald). This is a related article.
There are the things we remember
That we forgot,
The things we forgot,
That we remember,
And then there are the other things,
The things we forgot we forgot.
Went there last year too, shame about the weather. But really cool to see Maori celebrating alongside (a few) Pakeha! It’s a great day, sadly the good news doesn’t get air time.
From the very get-go it seemed like the locals had made a conscious decision to stay away and ignore Key, thereby removing any hope he had of making hay over disturbances.
Hi vto your are correct there, we dont want to give key any more credibility than his party loyals do, we also don’t want to be locked out of te marae by the thickening blue line, that just cause’s frustration and then sometimes violence and then key will be right … in his and his party loyals own feeble minds.
why would we want to celebrate this day of the great colonial lie?
It’s your work we’re talking about so your thoughts are required before we go any further.
I think it could be done and should be done. It’s time there was a public response to the media’s lack of holding Key to account, in a post Dirty Politics NZ. We can’t leave it to opposition parties to do all all the work. As NZer’s, ordinary people, we can also hold a mirror up to the govt.
If you think the idea is daft, just say, and I’ll drop it.
The idea is on a par with Bob Jones “Achievements of the third Labour government” which consisted entirely of blank pages… hee hee what a hoot that was…
Been thinking about BliP’s list, and if it could work as an interactive website.
(I realise that the conversation has been about printed form, but just putting this out there…)
Trying to think of a framework that would be appealing, and allow people to dip into it now and again, while also keeping track of new and relevant material. (And we all know that is going to happen.)
So far:
1. Create a “wall of lies” like filmforaction.org ‘s Wall of Films
2. You could also have a Top 100, and allow people to search by interest
3. Also a calendar that shows the lies by dots, so you can view clusters and the sheer number of them.
4. Include a separate category for Brain Fades/or my office statements
5. On The Century of Self – there is a clip where they were trying to show the public how to avoid being manipulated by the media. Eg. analyse the articles by headline tone, emotive words logic etc. A big undertaking, but one that would be interesting to see how little attention is paid to the failings of National, and the imagined bottle of wine of Labour.
6. Maintain some kind of timeline that matches media reports with problems, and diversions. (I think of this diversion technique as “You don’t know how lucky you are!”)
7. Try and find someone who can critique and maintain something similar to Russell Brand’s Trews – True News, subscribe here – subscribe here!
i am just pointing out the inevitabilities/difficulties of doing a dead-tree book..
..that won’t be present if done online..
..in no way am i dissing the idea..i have advocated an online-version previously..
..(what have you got against trees..?..)
..and did you feel like lashing out did you..?
..and as i am involved in the dissemination of news/information/ideas..
..i wd hope that information wd change wrong/entrenched ideas/mores..(c.f..cannabis..vegan..as the two obvious ones that i don’t see anyone else covering..)
..but ‘a roaring success’ wd b in the eye of the beholder..wouldn’t it..?
..wd u look at it if someone else told you it was worth the effort..?
..do u need those nudges/group/herd-approvals..do you..?
(if it helps..a site-audit by zeald told me that over 20,000 other websites..spread over 96 countries..
..have whoar on their best/recommended-sites lists..)
..and somehow..that i do commentaries on questiontime..
..cd become more relevant/readable in the reasonably near future..
Sorry phillip. Saying the online option only over the printed version was “no brainer” got me. I read this as “your idea sucks”.
I don’t have anything against plantation tree’s being used for paper for printing books.
In fact I descend from one of NZ’s early conservationists and have a deep love and respect for forests. I have askully wept upon hearing chain saws start up to remove a massive and very old stand of macrocarpa’s on the development where I live. They destroyed the habitats of a variety of ground nesting birds and assorted critters over the three days it took to destroy those lovely lungs. An ugly scar was left on the landscape. The full moon doesn’t appear in her Gothic glory on a rocky bit of clay, as she had previously done, gliding up slowly and majestically above the tree’s.
As for your site, I have visited it when you have linked it, for music. I’m not your target audience for your cannabis n vegan info though. But we’ve been through all that, in the past.
(focusing on high-quality content/commentary..sourced from what i deem to be the best publications around the world..basically the best of the best..each/every day..)
..the vegan/pot stories wd be 1-2% of the content..
..and i presume you regularly moan that there are no good left/progressive daily news sources in nz..
I can’t recall a time where I’ve ever “moaned” about the lack of left/progressive daily news sources in NZ.
I only have an expectation that news should be factual, unbiased and uninfluenced by advertising dollars, which it is of course, not.
Which brings me back the idea of crowd funding the publication of BLiP’s Chronicles. It would be, in part as I’ve already said, a challenge to the media, highlighting their inability and unwillingness to bring the full picture to the public. Which sounds like one of the motivations for you, for the work you do on your site.
No point “moaning”, when you can at least try, to do something about it eh? As you have done?
Well, by saying I don’t moan, It doesn’t mean I said the opposite either, which would be “we have an abundance of progressive news services here in Aotearoa”. That’s simply not true.
Before I became unwell I would use Democracy Now as well as receive email news from labour rights groups such as Labourstart and International Labour Rights Forum (I have an interest in this area and wanted to keep up with overseas labour rights news).
I don’t have the energy to keep up with that at the moment so start my day with RNZ news, then switch to Radio Active, especially on a Thursday if I’m up in time for the Scoop report, have a squizz at the scoop site most mornings, then have a squizz on The Standard.
In the evening for junk food news lols it’s TV3 at 6pm, followed by Al Jazeera. (not lols)
I haven’t read the Herald since 2006 and only look at stuffed.co.nz a couple of times a week, where I remind myself why I don’t visit that site.
A collaborative site such wikia or hackpad would be effective and easy for several contributors to edit. I’m thinking the URL could be something like “crikey.hackpad.com” (or hokey, flakey, keynotes, offkey, snakey, wonkey…)
If there were enough resources, another “wall of” tracking back through legislative changes that passed by unnoticed and uncommented would be a good addition at a later date.
Thats a great idea. The wall of ideas I especially like. Something visual you can click on discover what’s behind. As an aside,the NZ equivalent of Russell Brand’s Trews can be found every morning on the breakfast show hosted by Redbird Jnr on Radio Active 88.6 fm or listen to on line if you’re not in Wellington. As mentioned previously, they do the Scoop report with Alistair Thompson every Thursday morning too.
Agree that there needs to be an on line resource as the lies and the agenda isn’t a static thing and people have come to expect that everything is available on line. Then again, a site like The Standard is doing that anyway. Authors produce posts that critique our government’s work, and analyse media response to political events.
The idea for a book though, isn’t simply to release information. I see it as a people’s project. Something tangible, like a crowd funded book, represents a public response and in a way a public movement, a challenge to those who refuse to bring the full picture to light and as a service from members of the public to members of the public.
It’s an exercise in organisation as much as an exercise in education.
Coming from an entirely different intent than I was thinking.
Personally, I’m more interested in getting people informed so that critical conversations can be had over the next couple of years. It’s very difficult to have a reasonable conversation with people that don’t even have the basics of knowledge about what is going on. For that reason, I prefer the idea of preaching to the unconverted, and that would be something I’d put time and effort into if it was needed.
I’ll have to check out Redbird Jnr, appreciate the info.
In the end, I’m a book hoarder from way back, and would contribute what I could to help the publishing of Blip’s list.
Yes, the core purpose of publishing the chronicles is to inform and educate.
I’m just saying there is more than one aspect to it, and yes, the audience would be those who don’t have the basics, as well as others, to my mind at least. There isn’t much point publishing a crowd funded book for a those who follow politics closely, or if there is that can be left to some one else. That WOULD be preaching to the converted.
There seems to be thousands upon thousands of NZer’s who have been turned off the concept of politics and fail to understand how critical a part they play in a democracy. These are the people that need to be reached and I agree, it’s very difficult to have a reasonable conversation with them.
The trick is engaging them. It’s working out a way to do that. I’m guessing the writing style is one way of doing that. But there’s a a lot to think about before we get to that stage and BLiP hasn’t entered the craic yet………….
have various topics represented on the wheels – in icon form, or words
when the player pulls the arm, the wheels spin
a simple animation runs as the wheels spin
when it stops, the machine pays out currency
when the currency is clicked, (collected) the link is activated
the link could go to an article or an analysis of the item or a video etc
Different buttons on the dashboard could group different ‘lies’ into topics so the pay out relates to that topic
Don’t always dwell in the Open Mike but found your comment today. Wow!! Go ahead: do whatever you wish with any of my lists. While I am happy to compile them, they are Copyleft and available to anyone who wants to make use of them.
Here’s my current, updated list of John Key’s Lies:
We seek a 50% reduction in New Zealand’s carbon-equivalent net emissions, as compared to 1990 levels, by 2050. 50 by 50. We will write the target into law.
the price of goods and services has risen by 6 percent since the last election, while the after-tax average wage has actually gone up by 16 percent
no, although its a week ago and here I am being interviewed on television about them, I havn’t seen Gerry Brownlee’s comments regarding demolitions in Christchurch and which caused such outrage, but I can talk all about them
oh, maybe our SAS soldiers were in the Kabul hotel gun fight but they weren’t wounded by friendly fire
New Zealand has lost $12 billion from GDP due to the Christchurch earthquake . . . oh, it might actually be around $15 billion from GDP due to the Christchurch earthquake . . . Blinglish said what?
the GCSB needs to spy on New Zealanders because of the terrorist threat, even though official reports released over my signature say there is no risk and the SIS has the matter in hand
Ummm . . . now that people are paying attention, the programme got underway but I stopped in in March 2013 or, askshully, it might have been September 2013.
National Ltd™ has been working on a number of things with New Zealand First on a number of things one of which has a financial component but I can’t talk about it
the money from the sale of state assets will not be used to prop up Solid Energy
I don’t see a place for a Winston Peters-led New Zealand First in a government that I lead. It’s not a matter of political convenience, it’s a matter of political principle.
This summer is the most active season ever for oil and gas exploration, with the industry spending up to $750 million. At the same time, the Government is strengthening the regulations that govern drilling, particularly in deep water.
Labour is trying to mislead people about eligibility for Best Start because they don’t get the payment while they also get paid parental leave.
A mountain of evidence shows that the quality of teaching – inside the classroom – is the biggest influence on kids’ achievement
Governor General Jerry Mateparae has been jostled while walking onto Te Tii Marae at Waitangi .
Cameron Slater, who I speak to regularly and who told me about Winston meeting Kim Dot Com, has got absolutely nothing to do with the National Party.
The Cabinet Office has cleared Collins of a conflict of interest after it translated comments on Oravida’s website which stated that she had praised its products
My Justice Minister, Judith Collins, didn’t lie to Parliament, she just didn’t understand the question.
The [MFAT] paperwork shows right through this that not only did the Minister have a very busy programme, all on judicial and justice issues, but, secondly, all the way through it talks about a private dinner.
The economic mess inherited by the Abbott government in Australia can be likened to the economic mess inherited by National Ltd™ when it came into office in 2008.
I have not been in contact with Cameron Slater ahead of the release of Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Cheryl Gwyn’s report into the SIS’s role in Slater’s 2011 political attack on former Labour Leader Phil Goff.
Here’s my list of the actions taken by the National Ltd™ Cult of John Key in its systematic attack on the environment of New Zealand. There’s some work to do in the latter part, its just got too depressing for me but, if anyone’s interested, I can steel myself to the task of writing each item up.
Since its election in 2008 National Ltd™ has:
been caught out repeatedly lying in the run up to and during the election campaign about its real intentions in relation to the environment
celebrated the opening of the foreign-owned Pike River Coal Ltd mine on DOC land adjacent to the Paparoa National Park from which 1 megatonne of coal will be extracted per year for the next 20 years – Pike River Coal Ltd has announced that it has found additional coal in the national park
cancelled a proposed efficiency standard (MEPS) on incandescent lightbulbs
arbitrarily excised 400 hectares from the brand new Oteake Conservation Park, including the most important and, ecologically, the rarest part of the new Park, the tussock and shrubland that went right down to the banks of the Manuherikia River, to enable future access to lignite
said nothing to say in regard to the World Commission on Protected areas of IUCN’s severe criticism of its intention to investigate mineral resources and mining opportunities in protected conservation areas including our three UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Te Wahi Pounamu-South West New Zealand, Tongariro National Park and the Sub Antarctic Islands
called for caring New Zealanders to halt their “emotional hysteria” and recognise that conservation land should be mined for minerals and went on to say “Mining in a modern, technological way can have a negligible effect”
rubished the Department of Conservation (“Canterbury Farming” June 2010 issue – now offline) suggesting it was incapable of looking after the high country reserves and parks under its control
removed the ability of Auckland to introduce a fuel levy to fund planned public transport upgrades
left electrification of the Auckland rail network up in the air without promised funding commitments and then came through with a dodgy loan scheme and then unilaterally reorganised the local government structure before finally setting about the privatisation-by-stealth model when busting KiwiRail
removed the programme to make Government Departments ‘carbon neutral’ and also began its first wave of public sector redundancies starting with the Ministry for the Environment which was responsible for the scheme
set about revamping Auckland governance in a way that is likely to greatly reduce the ‘Environmental Watchdog’ role of the the current Regional Council (since completely fucked it up with the SuperShitty)
defended internationally the importation of rain-forest-wrecking palm kernel and stood silent while Federated Farmers called Greenpeace “despicable” criminals, traitors, and robbers
took a 0% emissions reduction target to Copenhagen. Yes, seriously, that isn’t a misprint – that was the lower bound of their negotiation platform – then missed the 01/02/10 deadline for commitment to action it had agreed to – meanwhile 55 of the 80 countries which attended did make the deadline
secretly cancelled the internationally recognised scheme for the mandatory labelling of exotic woods to ensure the timber has not been taken from rain forests in direct contradiction of its own statements made at the 13th World Forestry Congress in Argentina
gave the Department of Conservsation $1.7 million to further develop commercial activities on DOC land and started an “off set” plan allowing company’s to damage the conservation estate if they agree to improve land elsewhere – no monitoring regime has been suggested on put in place
announced a $1.69 million industry subsidy to kick start marine farming without identifying no-go areas nor putting in place a consultation process for individiuals, communities, and other general coastal users
been forced to release documents under the Official Information Act which confirm that DOC has “giving up” on ecologically valuable high-country land in the Mackenzie Basin because of funding cuts. The released documents cite “statements made by ministers”, “diminishing funding” and the Government’s new high-country policies as reasons for the changed stance – the comments from DOC were made after Land Information New Zealand (Linz), which manages the tenure review process, ignored DOC’s previous conservation recommendations for the farms
used former National Party minister and current director of Open Country Cheese – a company convicted of filthy farming practices and found by the supreme court to be a dodgy employer – Wyatt Creech to head up an enquiry into Environment Canterbury which had been standing up the dairy farmers’ demands for more and more water resources and less and less regulation. The Creech report recommended the Environmental Canterbury be sacked and replaced with government appointments and the voters of Canterbury do without democracy until the water situation had been resolved. The Canterbury area holds 50 percent of New Zealand’s fresh water reserves and 50 percent of the water required for hyrdo energy. The Creech report said Environmental Centerbury put too much focus on the environment
been subjected to international condemnation for knowing next to nothing about the parlous state of the New Zealand fisheries
bucked international trends and poured more acid on the 100% Pure brand and increases the bluefin tuna quota
squirmed when New Zealand is subject to international criticism for its backing of commericial whaling which National Ltd supports
funded Government-owned company Solid Energy runs an essay competition entitled “ The role of coal in sustainable energy solutions for New Zealand” for school children. First prize is a trip to New Zealand’s largest coal customer, China.
supported access fees for entrance onto DOC walkways – fee introduced following cuts to DOC’s budget.
pressed on with PR bullshit about how New Zealand’s environment would profit from mining national parks, Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson says.
Department of Conservation director-general Al Morrison said the conservation estate created “opportunities to do a whole lot for a lot of different people . . . we’ve got to get away from this idea that somehow we have to protect one-third of New Zealand for a certain constituency and put it in a jar of formaldehyde and leave it
done nothing as both its own SOE Meridian and the Department of Conservation to withdraw appeals against an 85m high damn with a 14km long reservoir on conservation land.
granted Energy Resources permission to ship Australian yellowcake uranium ore through New Zealand.
apologised but does nothing else for breaching the Treaty of Waitangi by granting a mining exploration permit to Brazilian company Petrobras
totally reversed gains made in the protection of National Parks and other high-value conservation areas in the South Island.
commenced a divide-and-rule strategy by attempting to paint New Zealanders interested in protecting the environment as outside of the “mainstream” and in defence of the fact that the media is catching to its bare-faced lies in the lead up to the 2008 election
carried on with more lies by talking about modern mining like that at Reefton being carried out by Oceana Golds as being like “key hole surgery”
appeared to believe that the tourists it is attempting to bring to New Zealand are all blind and won’t see for themselves the impact of the dairy farming it is subsidising to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars
employed financial sleight of hand in shuffling funds towards business interests and away from community groups looking to protect the environment
made more empty promises when a report showing that a third of New Zealand lankes have poor quality water is released
backed down on promises to protect New Zealand children (and the environment cleaner by more informed disposal) from harmful chemicals by improving labeling and imposing mandatory standards on containers
Ignored the findings by attacking the messenger when a World Health Organisation report confirms that New Zealand’s main centres have the worst air in Australasia and Auckland is the most polluted with twice the concentration of damaging airborne particles as Sydney.
studiously ignored so as to take piss about dire warnings concerning the quality of drinking water in Reidstone
failed to mention in its 100% Pure promotions that visitors to the Kerikeri Basin near the Stone Store – one of Northland’s iconic tourism and heritage sites – could come face-to-face with warning signs telling them the water is polluted
failed to mention in its 100% Pure promotions that tourists in the Coromandel could come face to face with New Zealand’s environmental standards when finding hundreds of dead snapper washed up on Beaches
put tourism operators in Akaroa at risk by refusing to make the harbour a marine reserve . . . and then rubs salt into their wounds
done nothing after the United Nations finds that National Ltd™’s targets for reducing pollution are not consistent with the measures put in place to achieve those targets
attempted to defend the Emissions Trading Scheme from comparisons with the Australian model while Environment Minister Nick Smith indicates there’s little chance of the two schemes being integrated any time soon
then further slowed down the implentation of New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme
allowed major retailers to reap the benefits of its earlier and secret decision to abandon the mandatory labelling of exotic woods after it is found that the retailers are contributing to the death of native Australian forests despite an independent, year-long investigation which finds otherwise
tried to keep a meeting between John Key and mininng company Anadarko’s boss secret. The company is responsble for a massive oil spill and is looking to to start drilling off New Zealand soon
continued to ignore yet more evidence of farmers failing to comply with environmental regulations
handed over $400 million to farmers to extend water storage and allow for more land to be used for dairy farms. No mention or provision is made for additional protections required to deal with the increased pollution
failed to point out in its 100% Pure promotion that tourists (and locals) should avoid the Opihi River along State Highway 1 because of the risk of exposure to toxins from phormidium
failed to point out in its 100% Pure promotions that tourists arriving at New Zealand’s “nuclear free” sea ports will be sharing the environment with up to 5,000 tonnes of radioactive yellow cake uranium
Ignored John Key making an international arse out of himself in regard to New Zealand’s 100% Pure image
carried on with its lies as New Zealand is identified as jeoparising its good name by allowing us to become one of a small number of states stalling progress in forming an international climate agreement
kept stringing us along even after Next thing, New Zealand received the 2nd place Fossil Award for “proposing the most Flexible Mechanism imaginable with no oversight or review. Bring on the wild west. They want to be able to use any market mechanisms they wish with absolutely no oversight or international review! There would be no way to ensure that the units from one mechanism have not been sold two or three times to another such mechanism. This would likely unleash a wild west carbon market with double or triple counting of offsets and a likely increase of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.”
stood silent when Fonterra was caught out lying by overstating its farmer’s compliance on excluding stock from waterways by 100%
put World class surfing waves and Maui’s dolphin’s at Raglan at severe risk by encouraging a proposed iron ore seabed mining in New Zealand’s coastal waters
never followed up after the scientific models created by New Zealand and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) to allow fishing are called into question
set the scene for our children heading down to the park to find an overseas’ owned company had set up a dairy farm in one corner. Over time the shit builds up
failed to tell the tourists it hopes to attact with its 100% Pure campaign that every year, New Zealand drops huge quantities of poison-laced food into its forest ecosystems; enough poison to kill its human population 4 times over, every year. No country has ever done anything remotely similar, on such a scale
failed to tell the tourists it hopes to attract with its 100% Pure campaign that more than a third of Auckland’s beaches fail water quality checks and are closed for swimming
ignored the closing of the beaches, this time as extremely high concentrations of the bacteria enterococci are identified
ignored Ministerial conflicts of interest, this time involving John Key who is identified as shareholder in the Bank Of America which is backing mining in New Zealand and Australia . . . even when more information is made available . . . and more information . . . and more information
pressed on with additional policies that move away from the protection of the environment towards exploitation
limited , as part of its effort to cash-in on the environment, access to some of New Zealand’s most endangered species and isolated islands only to those who those who contribute financially displacing conservation staff and scientists
continued to give confidence to Fonterra director Colin Armer being convicted and fined $72,000 for “fouling” a Bay of Plenty waterway after a judge found he could have prevented the pollution were it not for his “systemic” failure to monitor what was happening on his company’s farm
lied when it said New Zealand has the environmental laws and regulations to control oil and gas development on the continental shelf because there is no equivalent of the Resource Management Act to control oil and gas activity outside of the territorial sea (12 nautical miles offshore).
lied when it had already agreed coastal plans to allow marine farming consent holders in the Waikato and Marlborough to move from mussel farming to finfish farming without considering the additional environmental effects imposed
placed short-term business interests ahead of long-term consequences to New Zealand’s environment, particularly biodiversity by allowing damage in one area on the condition that it be “off set” in another creating a dangerous precedent in that such a provisin means that one part of biodiversity can be wrecked in return for “protecting” an area that was never under threat anyway.
promoted proposals that include include a plant producing about 2 billion litres of diesel per year, using at least 12 million tonnes of lignite per year and another producing 3 billion litres using 12-17 million tonnes of lignite annually. A further project would produce by 2016 1.2 tonnes of the nitrogenous fertiliser, urea, using 2 million tonnes of lignite annually
been forced to admit that it has spent $1.67 million in a survey of minerals on the West Coast of New Zealand, including within the Te Wahipounamu South West New Zealand world heritage area. Te Wahipounamu is one of 183 natural heritage
secretly ordered that world heritage sites on the West Coast be surveyed as part of a $3 million mineral study spanning more than 16,000 square kilometres. The survey was only puiblicy revealed after Green MP Catherine Delahunty asked for details in a parliamentary question
under resourced New Zealand’s biosecurity system to such an extent that it is fundamentally flawed preventing any way of identifying how the Kiwifruit killer virus got into New Zealand and, thus, no way of preventing it from happening again.
appointed an advisory group to recommend a significant rewrite of the Resource Management Act to remove references to the protection of coastal areas, wetlands, lakes and rivers and indigenous flora and fauna.
splashed tax payer cash around its consultants considering conservation and environmental protection of the Mackenze Basin and Waitaki Valley
Supported the Department of Conservation into granting foreign-owned multinational mining company OceanaGold permission to destroy 55 hectares of beech forest so as to extend its Reefton mine to a total 81 hectares without public notification
envouraged the Minerals Industry Association to bully local authorities to step aside from what little environmental protections they are able to impose
drastically reduced the size of proposed marine reserves off the West Coast so much so that one advocate says they are “an insult” to those who spent years trying to establish them
instructed its delegates at the world’s largest conservation conference , the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s conference in Korea, to oppose any further measures to protect Maui and Hector dolphins in defiance of 117 other countries and 460 environmental organisations requesting New Zealand ban gill and trawl nets in waters up to 100 metres deep
twisted the knife by exploiting news of redundancies at Solid Energy in a statement which claims opponents to a proposed mine are “getting in the way of” potential jobs as part of an effort to discourage legal action
changed to law allowing a consideration of the effects on climate change to allow Australian-owned mining company Bathurst Resources (also known as Buller Coal) to build a 200-hectare open-cast coal mine on the plateau and excavate 80 million tonnes of coal that, when burnt, will release about 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
avoided its international obligations “to ensure the conservation and management of sharks and their long-term sustainable use” while its fishers carry on with the barbaric practise of shark finning.
vancelled without notice the five-yearly State of the Environment report put together by the Ministry of the Environment, the report is the largest stock-take of trends relating to land, water, air, plants and animals
allowed its on lobbyist to publicly attack a prominent New Zealand scientist for speaking truth about New Zealand’s environment in an effort to silence the accurate reporting of scientific evidence
attracted international mockery for the fact that the pristine landscape featured in The Hobbit and used as the basis for the 100% Pure New Zealand campaign as fantastical as dragons and wizards
remained “relaxed” about the fact that New Zealand is now the 18th worst out of 189 nations when it came to preserving its natural environment
pulled out of Kyoto just weeks after the OECD reports that global greenhouse gas emissions could rise 50 per cent by 2050 without more ambitious climate policies, as fossil fuels continue to dominate the energy mix
laughed when New Zealand received two “Fossil of the Day” – first-equal and second place – awards on the first day of international climate talks in Doha, Qatar
used Hobbiton – Waikato – as the centrepiece of its 100% Pure campaign when the area is the country’s major source of pollution to the Hauraki Gulf
handed over responsibility for the monitoring and reporting of fraking activity , for which it has inadequate legal protections, to the foreign-owned multi-nationals which are carrying out that activity thus totally ignoring its own Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment
lied, obfuscated and used government resources to attack and undermined local authority plans to improve water quality
sanctioned an unnamed foreign-owned multinational to go ahead with a major road through pristine South Island National Parks
refused to investigate the impact on increasing use of neonicotinoid pesticides which is likely to be a major contributor to the sudden and dramatic decline (aka colony collapse disorder) of the New Zealand honey bee population, National Ltd™ also refused to consider the development of a strategy to protect what is left of the honey bee population.
lied about its commitment to addressing climate change
failed to monitor Sanford Ltd’s pollution resulting in an international embarrassment
allowed foreign-owned multinationals to proceed with oil exploration without the financial resources available to mitigate any environmental damage should it occur
been caught out ignoring its own advice on implementing environmental monitoring procedures
mixed the cooperative model of climate change negotiations with the competitive model used in trade negotiations, thus putting outcomes in both areas a risk
ducked questions asking for evidence as to the safety of genetically engineered food
ignored the fact that New Zealand carbon credits are no longer the unit of choice in the New Zealand’s own carbon market. Figures from the official Emission Unit Registry show that emitters who initially supported NZUs are now using a range of international units to meet their carbon obligations under the Emissions Trading Scheme
used highly dodgy figures in calculating the reduction New Zealand’s net carbon emissions by including trees due to be harvested in the next few years
ignored news that New Zealand’s first glyphosate resistant weed has been found and the resulting call for the use of glyphosate (Monsanto’s “Roundup”) to cease
stayed silent for five months after being advised that Fonterra’s milk product were contaminated with dicyandiamide (DCD) and now face an international backlash.
set no maximum level of contamination of dicyandiamide (DCD) (AKA cyanoguanidine) in milk products for consumption by New Zealanders, stood silent while the farming industry says the withdrawal of dicyandiamide (DCD) will result in yet more pollution of New Zealand’s waterways
been unable to explain how genetically engineered mould escaped from Massey University laboratories and remains unable or unwilling to provide further information
introduced foreign species without a consideration of the risk to human health
obfuscated on the level of cuts to the Department of Conservation
disengaged the previously widely held concept of environmental protection from any consideration of economic development
sacked 140 staff at the Department of Conservation
inserted last minute changes to environmental legislation that were not announced and, thus, not considered during public submissions and earlier readings of Bills.
stood idle while water quality used by households continyes to worsen
ensured that the MacKenzie Basin is turned from a conservation estate into a development area
used parliamentary urgency to avoid public notification, consultation and/or consideration of a law allowing companies with no experience nor financial resources to drill for oil on earthquake-ridden fault lines lying in New Zealand coastal waters
here would be significant and irreversible adverse effects on the conservation values and overall ecological integrity of the application area and the Denniston Plateau should the proposed activity be approved”?
It is disgusting that if you are a sportsperson you get no conviction for an offence that endangered peoples lives because it might affect their ability to play overseas, but an actress convicted for taking part in an environmental protest gets no such consideration.
Environment Canterbury (
Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Act 2010
Denies access to the Environment Court for the resolution of environmental and resource
–
management matters in the
Canterbury region
Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Act 2010
Enables the Minister for the Environment to choose what law will or
will not apply to Commissioners appointed to replace
the Canterbury regional councillors
16/12/08 – Palmerston North police officer Timothy Hesketh, 27, who lied during investigations and showed no remorse was found guilty of breaking a prisoner’s neck yet escapes a jail sentence.
09/02/09 – A police recruit escapes assault charges and is permitted to graduate with any sanction or note on his personal file. He first posting was South Auckland.
11/02/09 – Lower Hutt police leave confidential documents behind after executing a search warrant putting witnesses at risk of gang violence and then fail to own up at a subsequent IPCA enquiry. The inquiry noted: “The conflicting accounts given by the two officers, and the facts that no officer has taken responsibility for the loss of the Operation Order and that the Police investigator has not been able to identify that officer, are undesirable. Whilst there is no evidence of criminal conduct in relation to the loss of the order, its loss does amount to misconduct.” The Mongrel Mob say they know who left the report behind but were never interviewed.
17/03/09 – The IPCA criticises police for their continuing failure to develop procedures for the prompt drug and alcohol testing of officers involved in serious incidents.
27/03/09 – A Christchurch officer broke a number of police protocols in the lead up to the fatal shooting of Stephen Bellingham. The IPCA finds that the unnamed officer: did not tell his communications controller he was going to the scene, nor did he advise them he was armed, failed to brief two other officers who were on their way to the scene so that he could tackle Bellingham with support, and, crucially, a dog patrol unit, which would have been a huge asset to the effort to contain Bellingham, was diverted to another crime.
30/03/09 – Nelson police officer Anthony Dale Bridgman is convicted of two counts of dangerous driving after he pulled out in front of two motorcyclists, seriously injuring both.
29/05/09 IPCA states that Auckland Police officer Constable Aaron Holmes was breaking the law and ignoring official policy when he seriously injured innocent teenage Farhat Buksh.
20/06/09 – An unnamed police officer is reprimanded for writing out the employment details of a driver on a speeding ticket as “kitchen bitch”.
25/07/09 – Northland police run down two pedestrians, killing one and injuring another.
15/08/09 – An Auckland constable is suspended after it was alledged that he leaked sensitive information to help a known criminal to avoid arrest. The unnamed officer was in a squad which targets “volume crime”, in particular burglaries, and had access to the police intelligence database.
05/08/09 – Hamilton police tell a disabled man they are too busy to investigate the alleged theft of $1600.
07/09/09 – Senior Instructor at the Porirua Police College, Detective Sergeant John Gualter, is convicted for drunk driving after being found to have an alcohol reading at more than twice the legal limit.
09/09/09 – A Wellington man has his neck broken by a police baton while a party is being shut down.
19/09/09 – Auckland police officer Constable Matt Hooper is charged with perverting the course of justice after attempting to make use of a legal loop hole to avoid drunk driving charges.
26/09/09 – National Head of Police Professional Standards, Superintendent Jon Moss resigns after news of an affair he had with a junior colleague comes to light. Moss helped introduce the new “professional distance policy” last year which covers sexual conduct for officers with the public, victims of crime and work colleagues.
28/09/09 – Masterton detective Sue Mackle goes public on the fact that police are failing to investigate hundreds of sexual abuse complaints in favour of focussing on property crimes because doing so makes the statistics look better.
09/10/09 – Dunedin police fail to follow procedure and a prisoner is found dead in the cells when they finally get around to checking.
09/10/09 – Nelson police officer Senior Constable Garry Dunn is sent to trial for assault after a two day depositions hearing was told he rammed a cyclist with his car and then pepper sprayed the man for not wearing a safety helmet.
04/11/09 – Whakatane police prosecutor Adrian Hilterman was sentenced in Tauranga District Court today to 150 hours community work for assaulting his wife. He was convicted and discharged on three charges of assaulting his children. In the same court last month, he was found guilty of assaulting Deborah Hilterman, 37-years-old, by kicking her around the groin area between June 1 and June 29 last year at Whakatane. He was also found guilty of assaulting her in a car travelling from Auckland to Whakatane on June 30, 2007. He was discharged on 10 other charges of assaulting his wife, a Whakatane general practitioner.
09/11/09 – Figures released under the Official Information Act show that half of all police officers charged with drunk driving are convicted.
16/11/09 – Auckland police officers Patrick Garty, 32, and Wiremu Bowers-Rakatau, 21, charged with assault.
21/11/09 – 51 police officers were disciplined in the year to date for a variety of things including turning up to work drunk, unlawfully using their police ID, assault, speeding, using excessive force, and inappropriate behaviour on duty.
17/12/09 – Christchurch police officer Nathan Thorose Connolly is sent to jail for inducing sexual connection from the sex worker by means of a threat.
23/12/09 – The IPCA announces a nation wide investigation into how police are dealing with child abuse complaints, following on from revalations made public in November.
12/01/10 – Taranaki police are criticised by the IPCA for not preventing a drunk driver going on to kill three people when Hawera officers could have taken steps to immobilise the driver’s vehicle when they found it parked up outside a pub after a chase.
19/01/10 – Two unnamed police officers fail in their duties resulting in the otherwise avoidable death of a Hamilton woman.
22/01/10 – Rotorua District Court convicts an ex police officer for possession of child porn.
23/01/10 – Two Papakura detectives charged with indecent exposure and offensive behaviour after a drunken escapade.
31/01/10 Unnamed police officers are filmed putting the public at risk with a crazy display of dangerous driving at a school fair
14/02/10 – Auckland High Court takes two minutes to throw out a murder charge brought by police who had used huge amounts of resources and dodgy investigation techniques to manufacture the arrest and 16-month incarcertation of an innocent man.
16/02/10 – Christchurch police are slammed in a report for failing to adhere to policy during a chase which left an innocent bystander in hospital with horrific head injuries.
26/02/10 – Innocent Auckland man, 62 year old Brett Abraham is admitted to hospital for weeks of treatment after being savaged by a police dog. The police dog handler left Mr Abraham alone, bleeding and crawling up the driveway to his home.
28/02/10 – Christchurch police, despite a complaint of theft, failed to arrest a man who, the next day, committed murder. Police said at the time they were too busy to handle the theft complaint. Area police commander, Dave Cliff, refused to discuss the matter.
01/03/10 – Union’s criticise a double-jeopardy situation produced by police circumventing privacy legislation in grubby deals with employers to ensure drink drivers are dealt to at work as well as in Court.
01/03/10 – 1300 Police officers fail their fitness test.
01/03/10 – Auckland police go to great lengths to keep the identity of the officer who shot to death innocent man Halatau Naitoko secret. His lawyers had earlier sought to deny justice by seeking to have the shooter exluded from attending the hearing at all.
03/03/10 – Dunedin police reveal that they failed to follow up a possible sighting of missing British girl Madeline McCann after a local security guard’s approach to police was disregarded.
05/03/10 – Invercargill District Court throws out an assault charge brought against a bus driver by local police after the driver was arrested for allegedly “assaulting” a child by stopping the child from assaulting another child on the bus.
07/03/10 – Detective Sergeant Lloyd Schmid is investigated for encouraging a junoir staff member to have sex with an informant in order to gain additional information.
27/03/10 – Another police chase, another crash. Two in one day.
31/03/10 – Senior police deny systemic faults played a part in the fact that Senior Constable Len Snee broken a number of rules in the lead up to him being shot by Napier gunman Jan Molenaar.
24/04/10 – Queenstown Police Sergeant Ian Collin, who prosecutes in the Queenstown and Alexandra district courts, was issued with an infringement notice and an instant 28-day suspension after being caught driving a police car at 149 kph.
30/05/10 – A police officer’s vile on-line diary is investigated in the hope of identifying the officer concerned. All posts from the gpforums are deleted shortly thereafter.
12/06/10 – Sergeant Jason Lamont gets to keep his job after being let off a drunk drive charge where he had been found to be one and a half times over the limit.
02/07/10 – Ex-Superintendent Jon Moss, the former head of “professional standards” faces new accusations of criminal behaviour.
04/07/10 – Senior police deny a culture of violence exists in the force following the standing down of a fourth officer from one Auckland district for assault allegations.
06/08/10 – Disbelief as the man responsible for tormenting Algerian refugee Ahmed Zaoui , former SIS director Richard Woods, is appointed to the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) for to years.
25/08/10 – Detective Inspector Dave Archibald who had been caught illegally accessing the police computer system to help the defence of convicted pack rapist Brad Shipton gets a promotion.
04/09/10 – Coroner David Crerar finds that having an extra officer involved in a search of Jan Molenaar’s Napier home would have prevented the death of police officer Len Snee.
19/09/10 – Armed police terrorise a couple for hours after raiding a house looking for a suspect who had moved out months ago, a simple fact police could easily have verified. An apology is given and $2000 spent on repairing damage caused by police in the raid.
28/09/10 – Superintendent Bob Burns says that other officers were involved in covering up perjury and the wilfully attempting to pervert the course of justice which is why it took five years to bring charges against only two officers.
10/10/10 – Evidence given by two police officers is thrown out and the officers concerned are under investigation for failing to disclose information to a defence lawyer which would almost certainly have led to a not guilty finding.
16/10/10 Veteran barrister Barry Hart details some of the history of a criminal culture within the New Zealand police force which goes back at least until the 1970s.
19/10/10 – More evidence of endemic corruption in the New Zealand obfuscated.
23/10/10 Superintendent Gary Smith gets promoted to a plum job despite a secret police report which states he acted unlawfully and totally mismanaged a complaint about the unlawful arrest of a justice of the peace. No charges have been laid.
14/11/10 – The mother of a 12-year-old beaten by bullies is turned away from Christchurch Police station when she went to make a complaint because there were no officers on duty to deal with the matter.
30/10/10 – It is revealed that former Bay of Plenty district commander Gary Smith who was appointed to a senior role had previously been accused of sexual harrassment and a secret settlement of $20,000 paid out.
17/12/10 Most crime in New Zealand goes unreported, a survey finds. Of those quizzed, 24 percent said they felt the police would not or could not be able to deal with the situation.
31/01/11 – Police are highlighted are persistent breakers of the do not drive while on the cell phone law.
04/02/11 – Senior Constable Terry Beatson is found to have accessed the police computer system 17 times in order to assist his wife in a custody case against he ex-husband. Beatson gets to keep his job.
18/02/11 – Detective Sergeant Mark McHattie is identified as having lied about a backlog of child abuse cases in the Wairarapa being cleared up.
20/03/11 – Deputy Commissioner Viv Rickard failed to act for two months on allegations of criminal conduct by former police headquarters superintendent Jon Moss. An investigation was subsequently launched when the details were discovered.
24/02/11 – Police are ordered to make an apology after being found to have released personal information containing untested factual allegations concering Tony Veitch to the media
20/03/11 – Its revealed that Deputy Commissioner Viv Rickard did not act on allegations about a former colleague’s relationship with a senior civil servant which later led to a criminal investigation.
29/03/11 – Start of the trail of Sergeant Martin James Folan who is subsequently found not guilty of assalt but who’s actions remain under investigation by the IPCA authority – two years later and nothing to show for it.
16/04/11 – Police are under investigation for attempting to convince other officers not to testify against sergeant Martin Folan in an assault case.
17/04/11 – Court actions against the police and corrections department come up against both political and institutional obstacles in what is described as a “David vs Goliath Battle for justice”.
17/04/11 Another innocent man sent to jail by dodgy police work finally receives compensation while the original case remains open and the police officers involved show little remorse or even interest in solving the case.
06/05/11 – IPCA says rules were broken in police pursuit which ended in fatality but not action required or recommendations necessary.
08/05/11 – Detective Sergeant Peter Govers is named as the officer responsible for sending two innocent men to jail. Govers keeps his job, even after subsequently being labelled as “reprehensible” for pressuring a female informant into giving him a blow job.
31/05/11 – Nelson police arrest and charge a man for theft after he took pies out of a rubbish tin at the back of a petrol station. The owners of the petrol station had twice told police these did not want to press charges. The charges were withdrawn in court.
16/06/11 An unnamed police officer found guilty of assault after punching a prisoner escapes conviction after a judge agrees that such a conviction would have effects out of all proportion.
25/06/11 More evidence of historic and systematic police perjury surfaces.
11/07/11 – Constable Jamie Anderson was driving on an unlit rural road and texting on his cellphone when he ran over a pedestrian. No problem says ICPA.
28/07/11 – Police employee Patrick Bruce Phipps is found guilty of charges of illegal possession of a Finnish Valmet semi-automatic rifle and a Czechoslovakian VZ58 fully automatic rifle.
02/08/11 – Superintendent Ted Cox finally pays a $120 speeding ticket after first going through $8,000 of police budget trying to get out of it.
13/08/11 – Senior Constable Michael Lenihan is fined $250 for careless use of a motor vehicle after doing a u-turn in front of motorcycle resulting in the death of the rider. Lenihan was acquited of dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing injury
22/08/11 – Police finally find a good enough reason to drop charges against am autistic man they had beaten and held in custody for stealing two light bulbs before charging him with looting after the Christchurch earthquake.
24/08/11 – Hasting Senior Sergeant Luke Shadbolt says to the media about a missing girl “she is missing, but it’s not the story of the century. And if we had a major concern about the disappearance, we would have [issued] a media release about it”.
25/08/11 – Detective Inspector Dave Archibald is promoted to a senior position despite his illegal searching of the police computer system for information to assist officers’ defence in a pack rape charge.
13/09/11 – Police blunders at Pike River Mine subject to questioning at inquiry. Assistant police commissioner Grant Nicholls does his best.
16/09/11 – Illegal actions of police in regard to Urewera detailed in a Supreme Court judgement that couldn’t previously be released.
20/09/11 – Police apologise for breach of privacy after faxing a confidential parenting order to media.
25/09/11 Police get a caning from the Supreme Court for knowingly breaking to law to illegal gain evidence. No charges are ever laid and the government changes to law to cover the officers concerned.
19/10/11 – Accusations that police are lying about security threats in order to get their residential properties improved.
25/10/11 – Deputy Police Commissioner Rob Pope admits that he knew about the history of Superintendent Gary Smith who had previously been found to have acted illegally before he was later promoted to a plum police job.
30/10/11 – Superintendent Gary Smith appointed to the plum London job had previously been accused of sexually harassing a female police employee.
17/11/11 – Former Nelson policeman Garry Dunn is found not guilty of two assaults but resigns from the police after having illegally accessed the police computer system to assist his defence in the case.
21/11/11 Dozens of police officers face criminal charges according to details released under an official information request. Very few such cases appear to merit media coverage, it would seem.
16/12/11 – Police officers use excessive force in the unjustified arrest of a Christchurch man. District Commander Gary Knowles says the police will not apologise.
22/01/12 Police officers arresting protesters at the Occupy event are filmed all wearing the same ID number in an orchestrated attempt to hide their identities and hamper the processing of any complaints about the actions of individual officers
09/02/12 Chinese tourist Naiju Li lays complaint against the police alleging brutality in their arrest of the 56 year old woman. She suffered a dislocated elbow and required stitches to her face.
09/02/12 – Police commence an investigation after a 65 year old deaf, mute man dies while in police custody.
17/02/12 Police officer Karis Rewa Charnley makes her first appearance in court after being charged with lending her uniform to someone for use in the theft of a car. The charge Charnley was eventually dismissed after the judge described a “vacuum” in the evidence.
03/03/12 – Police prosecutor Timothy John Russell Sarah pleads guilty to a representative charge of supplying methamphetamine, four specific charges of supplying the drug and one charge of dishonestly accessing the police computer – the National Intelligence Application.
05/04/12 – Police officer Karis Charnley is charged with being a party to theft , being a party to impersonating a police officer and assault.
11/04/12 – An unnamed police officer appears in court allegedly involved in a collision with another car after doing a U-turn in front of it has appeared in court, charged with careless driving. But the officer is likely to avoid conviction after being offered diversion.
12/04/12 – A unnamed police officer was disciplined after giving false details to the Rotorua harbourmaster after being caught breaching a bylaw while riding a jetski on a lake.
18/04/12 – Various protesters at the Glenn Innes evictions of tenants in government housing claim the police used excessive force
15/04/12 – Detective Sergeant Rod Carpinter receives support after carrying out an illegal raid which was described by a judge as “consciously reckless”. Mr Carpinter was earlier criticised for his involvement in a drug bust in 2005 where his actions were also found to be “unreasonable and unlawful”.
20/04/12 Superintendent Bill Harrison, one of the country’s top policemen, was found guilty of serious misconduct after accusations he used police letterhead to dodge a $200 parking fine. Superintendent Bill Harrison retired on May 17 last year, before an independent investigation was completed so no disciplinary action was taken.
24/04/12 – Detective Senior Sergeant Mark McHattie who was at the centre of a major child-abuse cover-up has kept his job after a code-of-conduct investigation but police will not reveal the outcome of the long inquiry.
29/04/12 – A Northland man who received paralysing neck injuries while in police custody is in a “bad way” after surgery and is struggling to breathe on his own, his parents say.
03/05/12 – Constable David Mear returns to work after being found not guilty of using excessive force against a man who suffered a broken eye socket and cut to the head
16/05/12 – An unnamed police officer resigned late last year after being investigated for theft in the aftermath of the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
25/06/12 – Police officer Marcus Guy Andrew Molnar is convicted of theft after admitted stealing cash and soft drinks from a bar at the police station on four separate occasions
11/07/12 – National Crime Manager Detective Superintendent Rodney Drew defends the police force’s organised abuse of the court system by arranging the false arrest and court hearing of an undercover officer
11/07/12 – Inspector Paul Dimery resigns and, in a parting shot, tells the media that the New Zealand police force is compromising front-line safety because it is being run like a business
12/07/12 – Senior Constable Tony Andrews is found to have acted inappropriately due to a conflict of interest, and to have engaged incoercion and the breaching of privacy.
14/07/12 – Another police chase, another crash – three dead, police failed to follow policy.
07/08/12 – Senior Sergeant Rod Carpinter and Constable John Grantham escape criminal charges after having “materially misled” the court about a a drugs raid.
14/08/12 – Police justifications for using anti-terrorist officers to raid Kim Dotcom’s home were partly based on claims the tycoon assaulted a former staff member with his stomach.
28/08/12 – New Zealand police have been praised by the White House for their role in the case against Kim Dotcom, but are keeping it secret.
29/08/12 – An unnamed police officer appeared in court charged with <a href= appeared in court charged with illegal hunting. The officer appeared in the Blenheim District Court after earlier denying a charge of hunting deer and goats on land at Blue Mountain near Ward on April 17 without the authority of the property owner.
17/09/12 – Senior Constable Sean Ramkissoon accuses senior police officers of conspiracy, corruption and dishonesty, and his employment grievance escalated to the Employment Court.
25/09/12 – Police officer Jan Paul de Moor appears in court charged with assault
25/09/12 – Its revealed that Police Commissioner Peter Marshall signed the indemnity order which accepts potential liability if Kim Dotcom lays a claim for damages, it has been confirmed.
29/09/12 – Police receive a rebuke in court for leaving three drunk men in a vehicle with the keys in the ignition. Judge David Saunders told police it was a recipe for disaster.
29/09/12 – Police are heavily criticised for failing to abandon a pursuit that endangered the public and culminated in the deaths of two young men.
13/10/12 – Jakob Christie had his neck broken by a police baton more than three years ago. He is still waiting for the police to do something about it.
14/10/12 – Detective Senior Sergeant Al Symonds ignores evidence and spends 18 months dragging an innocent man’s name through the mud only to have the case dismissed in minutes.
18/10/12 – Few of the recommendations of a commission of inquiry into police conduct, concluded five years ago, have been fully implemented. Acting Police Commissioner Viv Rickard says he accepts the finding that more focus is needed on sexual assault investigations.
19/10/12 – A report by the Office of the Auditor-General reveals an “unacceptable” level of inappropriate sexual behaviour within police and said improvements were still needed in training staff who were involved in adult sexual assault cases.
23/10/12 – Police are found to be breaching basic human rights in the practises employed in the detention of young people in police cells. A review is called for, no action is taken.
25/10/12 – A police blunder results in four alleged Chinese people smugglers being awarded a $2000 payout.
19/11/12 – Constable Gary Neil Morgan of the North Shore Police strategic traffic unit is charged with careless driving after he crashed his patrol car into a tree.
28/11/12 – A convicted drug dealer is freed on bail pending an appeal because police involved in an investigation were found to have acted corruptly following a staged search for evidence against an undercover officer.
21/12/12 – Mikayla Paul is found guilty of assaulting a woman may yet be discharged without conviction.
22/12/12 – Police go over the top in protecting John Key from having to keep his word about buying a Christmas dinner for two Wellington men.
24/12/12 – A Hawkes Bay family is left shocked and upset with the treatment they received from police after an officer smashed their windscreen with his torch at a drink-drive checkpoint this week.
15/01/13 – Constable Perry Griffin is accused of excessive use of force after making an arrest.
20/01/13 – After cut backs in fire arms training, almost 1000 new gun safes are removed from police cars because of potential security issues, just months after they were rolled out across the fleet.
11/02/13 – A fifteen year old girl lays an assualt complaint against police after being left bloodied and brusied when police were breaking up a party.
15/02/13 – An unnamed police officer admits receiving money from people who had criminal charges against them dropped. At the request of defence counsel Pip Hall, Judge Brian Callaghan did not enter convictions because the defence wants to argue for a discharge without conviction.
20/02/13 – The Independent Police Conduct Authority promises to try harder after being found out for unnecessarily keeping reports secret.
23/02/13 – A former undercover officer comes clean about spying on protest groups, environmental organisations and trade unions.
23/02/13 – The IPCA finds that police could have prevented a murder had they acted earlier on information received.
01/03/13 – Hundreds of police officers across the country are withdrawn from the front line and told not to interact with the public, after failing a key fitness test
27/03/13 – Police still need time to introduce changes identified as necessary six years earlier following an investigation in its culture and practises.
27/03/13 – About 20 people protest outside Masterton police station over claims young people have been mistreated during arrest. The protesters included two teenagers who alleged they had bones broken while being arrested.
15/04/13 – Retiring Detective Senior Sergeant Grant Coward says police officers are leaving the force in droves, frustrated with the “budgets, the judiciary, new systems in place alienating the community and traffic taking precedence over everything,”
17/04/13 – Police admit to “dropping the ball” by failing to pay more than $5000 in rent to a tiny Christchurch community group run by volunteers and war veterans.
20/04/13 – Former drug squad detective Ernest Langford escapes jail after being found guilty of stealing thousands of dollars from a police safe and colleagues desk. Charges involving the theft of thousands of more dollars were dropped.
21/04/13 – Comments by Constable Paul Sharples about judges results in Auckland’s top police officer making an apology and starting an investigation into the way Sharples handled the case.
24/04/13 – Police sergeant Blair Donaldson pleads guilty to careless driving. Magistrate Ngaire Mascelle say a conviction would outweigh the severity of the offence and discharged Donaldson without conviction.
05/05/13 – The Independent Police Conduct Authority has received two complaints about the nation’s second-highest-ranking police officer, Mike Bush – but it will not be taking any action . The complaints were in response to Bush’s comments at the funeral of former police officer Bruce Hutton, a detective who was found to have planted evidence used to wrongfully convict Arthur Allan Thomas of murder.
21/05/13 – an unnamed police officer appears in court accused of asking for sexual favours in return for not prosecuting a motorist on a driving charge.
06/06/13 – Police refuse to engage with a lawyer representing teenagers seeking discussions about possible compensation.
18/06/13 – Hastings police officer, Adam Dunnett, 37, charged with indecently assaulting five women from a Hawke’s Bay surf club loses his bid to keep his identity suppressed.
24/07/13 – Two expert reports about an incident in which a wedding guest was run over on a Waikato road were ignored by a police crash analyst, a coroner’s inquest has been told.
04/08/13 – Lawyers are demanding a review of how police intercept private communications after a photo-journalist’s cellphone logs and messages, including exchanges with a lawyer, were obtained in and inquiry instigated by the PM.
05/08/13 – Police officer Dugal Matheson is slammed by a judge and convicted for dragging his former partner around by her hair and “manhandling” her son.
07/08/13 – Police officer Lotovale Ulufafo Solofa Perese appears in court charged with a variety of offences involving the smuggling of contraband for delivery to people being held in police cells.
12/08/13 – Detective Sergeant Mike Blowers appears in court charged with supplying methamphetamine and cannabis.
16/08/13 – Police have accidentally shot a man as he lay on the floor of a Hastings house while being taken into custody this afternoon.
18/08/13 – Concerns are raised after police do not lay charges against a care giver who locked an austic man in a flat and who later died in a fire at the property.
29/08/13 – The police decide to take no action of illegal spying.
31/08/13 – Police carrying out a “cold case” investigation of the Crewe murders demand an alibi from Arthur Thomas and members of his family.
04/09/13 – Officers working in OFCANZ fear internal reprisals if they were to tell police bosses about inappropriate conduct.
07/09/13 – Casual racism, ignorance, disrespect and insensitivity on the part of the police when dealing with the family of a murder victim exacerbate their grief.
09/09/13 – A sober woman left stranded in a pub car park in the early hours after police confiscated her car keys was raped shortly afterwards.
15/09/13 – Police are being slammed for a “monumental blunder” in which they searched and damaged an Auckland family’s home in the hunt for a man who brutally bashed a police officer – but they were at the wrong house.
15/09/13 – Hawkes Bay police leaving the force in droves amid a “draconian climate” after a regional restructure .
21/09/13 – Police have agreed to pay a Southland farmer $14,000 in damages and costs after armed officers entered his property without permission and, in a resulting tussle, pepper-sprayed him, punched him in the face and Tasered him while he was handcuffed.
22/09/13 – Road safety data being submitted by the public is being ignored by the police.
28/09/13 – The detective who blew the whistle on his alleged drug-dealing boss was removed from his squad and investigated before senior police took his concerns seriously.
28/09/13 – Central District commander Superintendent Russell Gibson, in a letter to convicted child rapist Robin Peter Abraham’s wife, described one of the rape victims as a willing party to the sexual abuse.
29/09/13 – A martial arts black belt who became a morphine-dependent invalid after a beating by Senior Sergeant Ron Greatorex , has won a five-year battle for compensation. Greatorex has never been charged and still works as a senior-ranking police officer in Christchurch.
10/10/13 – Police Association president Greg O’Connor says most complaints made against the police are from “perennial complainers who complain about everything to everyone”.
20/10/13 – It is proved in the Privvy Council that police use dodgy evidence and failed to provide all information to the defence in the Mark Lundy case.
06/11/13 – Police admit to having lied to the public about not receiving any complaints in relation to the Roast Buster case.
08/11/13 – Police threaten a blogger in an effort to stifle public discussion surrounding its own inaction and mendacity concerning the RoastBuster rapes.
18/11/13 – Senior Constable Gordon Stanley Meyer pleads guilty to bribery, corruption, and sexual assault.
18/11/13 – Police Senior Constable Gordon Stanley Meyer pleads guilty to bribery, corruption and indecent assult. Another unnamed police officer was also investigated but no charges were laid.
19/11/13 – Police Senior Constable Keith Rose pleads guilty to assault after grabbing a referee around the throat.
22/11/13 – Police Sergeant Brent English is investigated after a junior police officer complains that he made a lewd suggestion and exposed his penis to her.
05/12/13 – police refuse to explain how a dangerous criminal escaped from Dunedin Police Station.
11/12/13 – Sergeant James Casson takes a case to the Employment Relations Authority claiming he was subject to “bullying and threatening behaviour” by members of the Hamilton police management who had “closed ranks” against him.
11/12/13 Tasman district police are ordered by the Emplyment Relations Authority to re-hire its business services manager after finding his redundancy was invalid. Derek Coffey had worked for police for 23 years before losing his job in February as part of a nationwide police restructure.
The ERA found his redundancy was invalid and he was unjustifiably disadvantaged by police’s failure to redeploy him to an available suitable position.
11/12/13 – Police Commissioner Peter Marshall admitted to police failings in the “Roast Busters” case before going on to say that a drop in the public confidence of the police from 82 percent to 76 percent wasn’t much of a change.
13/12/13 – Police Constable Tako Cocker is arrested and suspended from duty after being arrested in Auckland for allegedly damaging a taxi side mirror after a dispute over the fare.
20/12/13 – A group of Christchurch police officers are threaten to sue Police Commissioner Peter Marshall for defamation over comments made about leadership at the Christchurch South Station where corrupt ex-cop Gordon Stanley Meyer worked.
17/01/14 – Christchurch Police officer Trevor Hinkley is convicted then discharged after pleading guilty to stealing $2750 meant to go to a victim support organisation.
22/01/14 – Christchurch District Police Commander Gary Knowles is expected to make an apology to a man arrested in November 2011 when the arresting officers were found to have used excessive force leaving an innocent man bruised and humiliated.
24/04/14 – Police refuse to answer an Official Information Act request for details about a government minister interfering in a criminal investigation on the grounds of “maintenance of the law”.
01/05/14 – Greymouth police sergeant Matthew Charles Frost who had nine drinks before crashing his car on a West Coast country road was convicted of careless driving but let off without punishment.
02/05/14 – Detective Inspector Mark Gutry resigns from the police before an employment investigation into the circumstances leading to him escaping charges in relation to a criminal sex complaint.
03/05/14 – It becomes apparent Superintendent John Tims buckled to political pressure in January 2014 after receiving a phone call from a government Minister requesting that a domestic violence prosecution be subject to review. Police National Head Quarters claims to have not been advised of the political interference until two months later when an Official Information request was made by media. Police National Head Quarters did not advise the Minister of Police about the situation until 28 April 2014.
08/05/14 – Police are found to have acted unlawfully in a ”disrespectful and degrading” breach of human rights when hundreds of New Zealanders taking part in a charity event to raise money for the Christchurch earthquake appeal were unlawfully detained.
24/05/14 – It is revealed that two Auckland police staff allegedly filmed themselves in a sex act during work hours and sent the footage to a junior colleague as an invitation to join them.
09/07/14 – Another police chase, another accident resulting in serious injury.
14/07/14 – It is revealed that Counties Manukau Police have been “cooking the books” with statistics to make it look like burgalry crimes have reduced.
18/07/14 – A coroner has criticised the actions of police officers who confronted an armed man, saying their mistakes had a snow-balling effect that ended in him being shot dead.
29/07/14 – A woman who drove straight to Whangarei police station to report an attempted carjacking was told to ring 111 to get a police officer to attend.
05/08/14 – Detective Benjamin Joel admits in court that police bungled the collection of evidence which was subsequently lost before a murder trial.
10/08/14 – Drug dealers, burglars and drink-drivers have walked free after a police botch-up led to officers carrying out illegal investigations. This is the third time the same botch up has occurred.
17/08/14 – Police apologise to a woman for the second time after botching a domestic violence case. The latest apology was for the assigned police presecutor not turning up in Court for a hearing which resulted in the assailant receiving a second discharge without conviction after having plead guilty to breaching a protection order.
18/08/14 – Former police officer Timothy Phillip Hartnell was discharged without conviction on an assault charge relating to him handcuffing a child for riding a bicycle on a footpath.
08/09/14 – Queenstown Police Constable Jenny McNee, 44, was found guilty of using offensive language in a racist tirade against Malaysian-born taxi driver Ganesh Paramanathan while arguing over a fare. McNee was discharged without conviction.
25/09/14 – New Zealand police provided incorrect statistical information to Minister Anne Tolley to bolster moves to give police more powers.
28/09/14 – It is revealed that Manukau District Commander, Superintendent John Tims, instructed staff to not respond to a journalist’s OIA request about the fraudulent nature of the area’s reported crime statistics.
01/10/14 – Lower Hutt police are slammed by the coroner for taking more than seven months to interview a man who supplied alcohol to a teen found dead the next morning from alcohol poisoning.
02/10/14 – It is revealed that a Christchurch police officer ignored two instructions to abandon a chase which posed an unjustified risk to members of the public and which resulted in the death of a 15-year-old.
11/10/14 – It is revealed that police spent more than three years covering up the fact that illegal drugs were being stolen by police from the Huntly station’s evidence safe.
09/11/14 – Two Auckland Central police officers Sergeant Neil Barton and Jo Barton resign before an investigation into them filming themselves in a sex act is completed.
12/11/14 – Police confirm that yet another officer from Central Otago is under investigation. Police would not confirm the name of the officer nor details of what the investigation was looking into. The investigation comes hard on the heels of a series of investigations involving officers in the Central Otago/Lakes District.
16/11/14 – Recruits at the Police Training College are stood down pending investigations of bullying.
20/11/14 – Another police chase another accident resulting in serious injuries. The IPCA finds that various unnamed officers failed to follow police policy and one officer broke the law during the chase.
27/11/14 – Another police chase another accident, this time leaving an uninvolved, innocent man with serious injuries. The IPCA finds that an unnamed police officer failed to comply with policy in relation to communication and site selection during the first attempted deployment of the road spikes. He also failed to comply with Police policy in relation to communication during the second attempted deployment of the road spikes. The IPCA noted: “The haphazard nature of both attempted deployments placed [the officer], Police staff and other road users at risk of harm.
02/12/14 – An unnamed Cromwell police officer is charged with assault after an investigation into an allegation of excessive force at the Cromwell police station
03/12/14 – Flaxmere Police Constable Shane Greville charged with dangerous driving causing injury after an accident in September.
11/12/14 – Two Central Otago teenagers receive letters of apology from the district’s highest-ranking police officer for the unacceptable actions of some police officers earlier this year. The one and a-half page letters, which were written and hand-delivered by Central Otago sub-area supervisor Senior Sergeant Ian Kerrisk last month, relate to a series of incidents – where the teenagers were falsely accused of committing petty crimes, and the subsequent unprofessional treatment and alleged harassment of the teenagers – over a period of time several months ago.
11/12/14 – An unnamed Tauranga police officer is found to have used excessive force when choking a mentally ill 14-year old boy.
12/12/14 – A Central Otago Senior Constable admits in court to using a police-issued iPhone to make an intimate visual recording of a teenager drying herself after taking a shower.
10/01/15 – Hamilton police officer, Senior Constable Keith Ralph Paul Day, pleads guilty to multiple thefts from his station’s exhibit room and lost and found section.
15/01/15 – South Island police are criticised for dragging their heels in a homicide investigation into the death of an infant.
15/01/15 – An unnamed Marlborough police officer is suspected being at fault when the police car he/she was driving was involved in an accident.
16/01/15 – A young couple and a police officer escape serious injury when the police officer pulled out into traffic on State Highway One without looking.
19/01/15 – 100 people protested outside the Whakatane police station after an unnamed local constable escaped both criminal charges and internal disciplinary procedures after admitting he had shot a dog which wandered onto his property with a crossbow. The bolt struck the dog on the left side of its chest but missed vital organs. In agony for hours at the time and in discomfort for months after being shot by the police constable, the dog has since made a full recovery.
22/01/15 – An unnamed Tauranga police officer was found to have failed to call a medical practitioner to assess a man who was bleeding from the mouth, nose and eyes after being involved in a bar fight and then, during his arrest, punched in the head several times by another officer. Various other procedural errors were made regarding the man’s arrest but an allegation by the man of excessive force by the police was not believed by the IPCA.
05/02/15 – Another police chase another accident. This time, the officer involved in the chase is found to have unjustifiably engaged in dangerous driving when pursuing a fleeing driver up the wrong side of the motorway, State Highway 1, near Tawa.
Phew! Right! I have just picked myself up off the floor after going through that tsunami of despair.
You have my utmost respect for the work you have done BLiP.
What has always struck me about your lists, apart from the bare faced key lies, is the pattern of of deceit that has woven itself throughout Key’s reign. He misleads and bluffs his way through his role as leader. He has always spoken from the position of a man whose values are constantly shifting to suit his own agenda and self advancement.
He has no moral integrity.
Your Chronicles illustrate his poor morality and his absolute lack of suitability to be a leader of a democracy. He will never get above level one (pre conventional, parts one and two) on Kohlberg’s scale:
Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
(How can I avoid punishment?)
2. Self-interest orientation
(What’s in it for me?)
(Paying for a benefit)
Level 2 (Conventional)
3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(Social norms)
(The good boy/girl attitude)
4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(Law and order morality)
Level 3 (Post-Conventional)
5. Social contract orientation
6. Universal ethical principles
(Principled conscience)
Back to The Book. Your master list perhaps could be broken up into areas of lies and deception: Economic, Misleading the House, Opposition politicians and their supporters, Employment, Public Service, Ministerial services and Promises to the public (eg, we won’t raise GST, etc) The environment cache of lies could be a part two.
At this stage The Book is just an idea. Brand Key is holding up the government and NZer’s need to know what they voted for is nothing more than a brand. A product created by a PR company. A false leader. Exposing Key for what he really his, a lier, could be one way to wake people up. The media is like zopiclone to the public, keeping us dosy and sleepy. That’s why I thought it might be good to do some shaking and shouting…………
I have no idea what happens next or if anything will happen at all………..
16/12/08 – Palmerston North police officer Timothy Hesketh, 27, who lied during investigations and showed no remorse was found guilty of breaking a prisoner’s neck yet escapes a jail sentence.
Is he any relation of the disgraced judge Robert Hesketh?
“..The Latest Cannabis Science You Need to Know..”
(excerpt..)
..’Five new cannabis-centric studies warrant major attention..
The study is not the first time that researchers have identified an inverse association between marijuana use and the development of cancer.
In 2009 Brown University researchers similarly reported that the moderate long-term use of marijuana was associated with a reduced risk of head and neck cancers – in a multi-center cohort involving over 1,000 subjects.
In addition the largest case-controlled study ever to investigate the respiratory effects of marijuana smoking – found no positive association between inhaling pot and lung cancer risk.
‘We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer –
– and that the association would be more positive with heavier use’ pulmonologist Dr. Donald Tashkin – Professor Emeritus at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA told The Washington Post.
‘What we found instead was no association at all –
– and even a suggestion of some protective effect’.
hmmmm interesting….. did you find you needed more as time passed and your body / mind got used to it? i.e. you needed increasing amounts for the same hit? (within the context of either big fatties or small pipettos
Canterbury and Otago longtitudinal studies show otherwise.
These studies have been published in Lancet unlike your study phil!
which are published in a pro marjuana magazine.
Smoking very “high”temperature substances damages airways and lungs!
Ingested eating cannibis may be safe when not driving or working!
Get real Phil every drug has drawbacks to Deny that is making your argument weaker!
..”..In addition the largest case-controlled study ever to investigate the respiratory effects of marijuana smoking – found no positive association between inhaling pot and lung cancer risk..
..and even a suggestion of some protective effect’..”
what do you find so hard to understand about a study from the med-school @ ucla..?
..where the scientists/doctors had that same expectation you cite as fact..
..”..Smoking very “high”temperature substances damages airways and lungs!..”
(exclamation-mark and all..)
..and were confounded to instead find:
‘What we found instead was no association at all..’
w.t.f. do u find so hard to understand about that..?
..and yr ‘pot-magazine’ attempt to discredit the credibility of that study..
..is just fucken farcical..
..(and no..exclamation-marks don’t necessarily make it so.. eh..?..)
Ms England knows why these pictures haven’t been published.
To all of us who have been charged, we all agree that we don’t feel like we were doing things that we weren’t supposed to, because we were told to do them. We think everything was justified, because we were instructed to do this and to do that.
People willingly giving up their moral agency to do the inhumane, while “just following orders.”
That’ s why I cited Lynndie England because IMO it could well be the real reason behind the refusal to publish all of the images when the Ahbu Gahrib chain of command apparently stopped at the rank of staff sergeant.
No commanding officers were prosecuted yet subsequent reports detailed the use of stress positions, humiliation, hooding, and rectal feeding as legitimate interrogation techniques.
“State capitalism is usually described as an economic system in which commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity is undertaken by the state, with management and organization of the means of production in a capitalist manner, including the system of capital accumulation, wage labor, and centralized management.” – Wikipedia
While the Wikipedia writer understands that state capitalism is a form of capitalism, this is not well understood on the New Zealand left. Much of this left, for instance, supports capitalism if the capitalist company is owned fully by the capitalist state. This left campaigned in favour of such ownership in the referendum on whether the government should be able to sell 49% of shares in a number of State-Owned Enterprises.
But from the standpoint of the material interests of workers, how is being exploited by a company, functioning as a fully capitalist company, owned by the state preferable to being exploited by one 49% privately-owned, or even 100% privately-owned? Workers are no better off materially. In fact, when the state itself functions as a capitalist company it is more thorough – and more powerful – as the boss.
The widespread left support for state capitalism in New Zealand also acts to disorient workers and retard the development of any meaningful class consciousness. It reinforces illusions in the nature of the state and of capitalism where the state itself acts as the personification of capital.
Singapore and China uses state capitalism to accomplish strategic objectives to strengthen their nation’s capabilities and potential. NZ uses state capitalism to extract more money from its citizens.
I was always amused when neoliberals held up the Asian Tigers as models for the NZ economy. They were all built with not only massive state intervention in the economy but a sizeable amount of state planning.
One of the other amusing things in relation to the neolibs was all the Asian tigers, even the tiny places like Hong Kong and Singapore, built on an industrial base whereas the neolibs wiped out much of the industrial base in this country.
They thought that as long as some people were making heaps of money somewhere in the economy it was all fine!!! They didn’t have much understanding of the bubble economy and its consequences – the more inflated the artificial economy is the bigger the crash will be when it comes. Even after 1987 they kept ploughing ahead. . . to new and bigger disasters!
Much of this left, for instance, supports capitalism if the capitalist company is owned fully by the capitalist state.
Yep, noticed that myself. IMO, many services which are run in a capitalist way should actually be government services supported through general taxation. There may, in some cases, need to be a use charge to limit usage. Electricity would have such a usage charge but telecommunications wouldn’t.
“Hooton ascribes part of Key’s popularity to his preeminence as a commentator on light-entertainment shows across New Zealand media. More FM, Breakfast TV, Seven-Sharp, etc. Critically these are (a) news sources for ‘median’ or persuadable voters and (b) they’re formats in which Key can assert his version of any news story unchallenged, and then go on to tell funny stories about the All-Blacks.
So there’s a reality-based community in which, say, people read the Inspector-General of Security and Intelligence’s report and see that Key’s office was found to have abused intelligence information for political purposes, but Key can create his own reality in the minds of hundreds of thousands of voters simply by going on Breakfast TV and explaining that his office was completely exonerated while the hosts nod their heads and smile.”
So somehow Labour needs a way to get to those “median” voters. Replicating Key wont work.
As I’ve been saying for quite some time: The people you really need to be concerned about spying upon you is the corporations, not the government. The government can be held to account, the corporations can’t (and the TPPA will make that even worse).
Nope it’s the government you need to be afraid of. That is because governmental power to imprison you, confiscate your property, run tax audits to ruin your life/business or outright execute you (eg in the case of droning US citizens) for purely political or venal reasons is beyond the interests and capabilities of standard corporations.
As for “holding the government to account” – that can be done in a functioning (or mostly functioning) democracy.
Governments can legally imprison or kill you.
Ever hear of private prisons or “military contractors”?
Corporations can sue you to bankruptcy and suicide. Or do you for copyright infringement, or trespass, or violating terms and conditions, or keep their aggregated data on a single unsecured database, or spend millions on lobby groups.
You can’t vote to change a corporation, though, because people with more money have more votes.
Auckland Central Remand Prison run by SERCO
Corporate reps at TPPA negotiations
File-sharing copyright infringment act
Secret sources of mcvictim’s senseless-sentencing finances.
Hager on NZ private military contractors
Anything from the Winebox Inquiry.
Anyone stiffed by a finance company or insurance company.
$65 parking fines for 5 minutes too long outside dunedin stadium.
Wheel clampers and their “fees”
Yeh, but the private prisons and military contractors are under contract to *the government*. So Col Rawshark’s argument still stands.
I’d say, however, government/state rather than just government.
And you can’t really change the state or the government. You can change which party is in power but, whichever it is, it runs the same apparatus. For instance, the SIS operated just the same under Labour as National, for instance.
I don’t want the SIS to be under Andrew Little instead of John Key. I want it abolished.
yes, if you reduce his list to two items and ignore the instances when technical illegalities appear to have been unpunished when large corporations have been involved, then yes, you raise a valid point.
Nope it’s the government you need to be afraid of.
Nope. As I say, the government can be held to account and changed whereas the corporations can’t. Of course, it doesn’t help that the government is presently owned by the corporations.
You still talk as if replacing one group of elite oriented politicians with another group of elite oriented politicians is going to have any real effect on the TPPA, mass surveillance, banking hyper profits, unaffordable housing, etc.
They got rid of Bush in the USA and Obama has been worse, from a targeted killings, civil liberties and imprisoning whistleblowers perspective.
When they say free they mean free for the wealthy to run things for there immediate benefit.
It’s also all about keys legacy he wants a flag and a convention centre in his name plus a knighthood ,let’s hope Little can bring him to his knees this year so he gets none of it.
I know it’s banging an old drum but for the benefit of new visitors….
Folk might notice the items listed as part of the original Government deal do not mention a 300 room hotel. For some reason this late addition to the deal is an apparently insignificant detail. Doubleplusgood deal.
The proposed International Convention Centre will be 38,000sq m on four levels. It will include:
Exhibition space: 8600sq m of exhibition space for 3500 people in three halls.
Theatre: To seat 3000 people for presentations or stripped out for large banquets and other events.
Gallery: A series of bridges connecting people to meeting rooms and theatres across the levels.
Meeting rooms: 3000sq m of meeting rooms and breakout spaces. Walls can be moved to adjust the size of the areas.
Sunset Room: To accommodate up to 1000 people for dinner or cocktails. It will look across the upper harbour and Waitakere Ranges.
“At the end of last year, SkyCity said the original $402 million cost had been “revised” to $470-530 million.”
“The documents the Herald obtained show SkyCity started making changes almost immediately after it secured land from TVNZ in September 2013.
The most significant was the placement of a 300-room hotel on the TVNZ land. SkyCity had said for years the land was needed for the convention centre.”
What does it cost to build a 300 room hotel? Who can tell but $130 million might just swing it.
Yep both Key and Skycity know 100% about the sham scam that has been pulled here regarding the addition of a 300-room hotel
The deal did not include a hotel…… surely the free market could deal with justifying the build of a hotel next to the country’s biggest casino and not need taxpayers to help them out? No? What the f&*k is the matter with the free market?
I have no problem with the government coughing up $130 million for a 300 room Hotel, IF we see every cent of the investment repaid in full at standard market interest rates plus a couple of points for the effort. Oh what’s that you say SkyCity? You could get a better deal than that from a bank – then go do that you %#&*^$ bunch of reprehensible parasites.
did Winston confirm he will stand ? I didn’t get that .. I got his repeated promise ‘help is on its way’, but no absolute confirmation which I was hoping for ? did I miss it ? thx
I thought he was marvelous today .. healthy and thriving.
wow. Speaker David Carter has just disclosed that Sabin is the subject of the suppressed court case by shutting down all reference to an MP who resigned.
Covering Key’s backside, that’s for sure.
Sorry lprent .. don’t have a link as yet but will post asap so you are in not in any breach … spoken by David Carter interrupting and preventing Andrew Little’s speech at about 2.30 pm this afternoon.
Little was very clear to only mention that an MP was under Police investigation. He did not mention a court, or a court case or a proceeding of any other form excepting the aforementioned and publicly reported Police investigation.
When the Speaker first rose to his feet it was understandable and to be expected as a precautionary measure, though him mentioning the suppressed court case in connection to comments on an MP under Police investigation was a shock.
To rise a second time and again mention the court case, when Little was clearly moving away from that area of commentary, The Speaker only confirmed the connection existed.
+100 ianmac and rawshark-yeshe…I was also buoyed to hear it on the radio as i was driving
Andrew Little superb in his attack on John Key….and followed up by Russel Norman and Winston Peters
….now if this trioka/ triumvirate could get together and cooparate to help Winnie win Northland…they are a government in waiting ….close enough to roll John Key and his corrupt government sooner rather than later …..
am I right in thinking there is no party vote in a by-election ? Well, if all those who party-voted NZ First vote for a candidate, it will be game on !!
Sure is good to watch Little when he’s in that sort of form alright, it would be even better if he eye balled the rat key while he’s ripping into him.
Its a shame that all the fools on tv3 news tonight showed of it was Littles repeated “masters of the universe” comment.
I see Tolley is refusing to answer media questions relating to Mike Bush contacting her. Now Carter shutting down all questions relating to the ex MP is outrageous. Some of us still believe in transparency from Central Government.
Some of us think things may need to be amped up by excising our democratic right to protest outside National electorate offices. Some of the Northland offices during the by election is a worthy place to start. People enjoy scribing their beef on placards and banners. What they write is up to the individual 🙂
I’ll be intrigued to what comes out before the by-election – Northland will still be national afterwards, but it might be interesting to see how much of a hit they take.
if it all comes out, I’d take a reasonable bet that Nats lose the seat. And Winston was very, very clear today he did not consider himself in the house to be bound by any court suppression ruling.
Technical legal question … if someone has pleaded guilty and the court has accepted such a plea, is it still sub-judice ? ( Tracey ?Murray ? Mickey? thx for your help as always !)
That is a strange back sided decision from Carter in the house today when he shut out Andrew Little making any reference to an MP being made the chair of the Law and Order committee while under police investigation.
YET, it is JOHN KEY himself that HAS been talking to the media about this issue announcing when and what date he was told about Sabin’s case (though he kept changing the dates) and ALSO said that he was OK with SABIN chairing that conflict of interest chairman’s post (even though it happened AFTER key/his office was already made aware through multiple sources), including Matt McCarten, of the police investigation!
How can there be one rule for Key and a different one for Little?
So, will the courts charge Key for the breach of their suppression order for his public statements?
they really are muddling up their knitting patterns and dropping stitches all over the place, aren’t they ? lie upon lie upon lie, and not a decent memory cell between them. actually, it’s potentially hysterically funny if it were not our democracy being corrosively attacked.
..mora is defending screws watching prisoners in the shower/on the toilet..
..and the panelists are braindead fucken idiots..
..some airhead woman..(who was once burgled – and seeks revenge..is positively gleeful..almost biblical in her desire for generalised-revenge on prisoners..f.f.s..!..)
(what is it with all these new dumbarse female panelists..f.f.s..!..)
..where are they finding them..?
..greg newbold came on..and is ‘disgusted’..the airhead snaps back at him..says that ‘prisoners should have no rights’..
“In darker days, I did a corporate gig at a conference for this big company who made and sold accounting software. In a bid, I presume, to inspire their salespeople to greater heights, they’d forked out 12 grand for an Inspirational Speaker who was this extreme sports dude who had had a couple of his limbs frozen off when he got stuck on a ledge on some mountain. It was weird. Software salespeople need to hear from someone who has had a long, successful and happy career in software sales, not from an overly-optimistic, ex-mountaineer. Some poor guy who arrived in the morning hoping to learn about better sales technique ended up going home worried about the blood flow to his extremities. It’s not inspirational – it’s confusing.
One of the vulnerabilities Kaufman and DARPA are working to eliminate that affects many is in the automobile. Cars today are loaded with computers networked to each other, and those can be hacked remotely. In a dramatic demonstration, he and his colleagues use a laptop computer to hack into a car being driven by Stahl. Much to her surprise, they were able to take control of many of the car’s functions, including the braking and acceleration.
That is a serious concern and it makes you wonder just what these car firms were thinking or if they were thinking. The really interesting bit, though, is in the next paragraph:
Kaufman showed Stahl a prototype of a program his department is developing to pinpoint and isolate any breached or compromised computer on the military network. “And before, it’d be completely invisible to us ’cause you’re hiding among tens of thousands of computers around the world. Now you and I can see [it] very quickly.” And, he added, “from here I could say, ‘Let’s shut that computer down. Let’s quarantine that computer off.'”
Yeah, real time monitoring of computers connected to the network.
nothing is known of the MH370 computers, other than when they ceased communication.
There is certainly no telemetry from the flight, which is sort of the problem.
Could be a hacker, but could be hijack, flight crew hijack, hypoxia+autopilot, hell even a close encounter of the third kind.
Until Bob Ballard or someone find the thing, nobody will know – maybe not even then.
exactly. agree with you 100%. the story above simply demonstrates one possible explanation, and proves a possible scenario in particular circumstances, which is why I commented.
I believe it deserves some oxygen and not to be forgotten, for the sake of the families, and passengers everywhere.
Serendipity: this crash was on telly tonight.
Yet another possible scenario. Pilots didn’t notice they’d plugged the wrong coordinates into the autopilot, flew into the middle of the Amazon.
Maori TV “Rethink.”
RMA Reforms. Just watched a half hour panel discuss the intent and practice of the RMA and broadcast on Maori TV “Re-think.” This is the first time I have heard/watched any discussion on this coming issue.
Damnit! How come it is avoided on other MSM?
The changes are certainly aimed at maximising economic advantages and minimising environmental ones.
Hence the Government is politically appointing Boards of Enquiry to avoid public input and avoiding the Courts for appeal.
When the detail becomes clearer will we protest?
And why do they automatically parrot the government-friendly formulation that these savage assaults against the right of citizens to challenge powerful interests are RMA “reforms”?
Similar anodyne language—“reform”, “changes”, “restructuring”—is used whenever there is discussion of the massive cuts to public housing, hospitals, education and welfare.
Rather than speak plainly, the likes of Brent Edwards on Radio NZ National seem more than happy to use the distorting and misleading vocabulary of the government.
NewsHub Nation has launched a new podcast, "Supplementary Question". Their inaugural episode is about the OIA, and asks "is our most important transparency law fit for purpose?" While they interviewed Justice Minister Andrew Little and Ombudsman Peter Boshier for this, there's not actually a lot of them in there, and ...
Remember the Ruataniwha dam? The Hawke's Bay Regional Council wasted $14 million trying to push this environmental disaster through before the Supreme Court ruled that the land swap it relied on with DoC was illegal. At the end of it, they wrote off the money and sold the existing consents ...
For years we've had a housing crisis in New Zealand, driven by immigration-driven population growth and the market refusing to build enough houses (and enough of the right sort of houses) to meet it. As a result, people can't get homes, while Boomer landlords leech away their income and parasitical ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Drawdown Review 2020: How To Address Global Warming In A Responsible Manner Source: Project Drawdown Project Drawdown is a non-profit organization that relies ...
Dr Tim Chambers, Prof Nick Wilson, Jayne Richards, A/Prof Simon Hales, Dr Mike Joy, Prof Michael Baker (author affiliations*)Increasing water-related health threats, notably the waterborne campylobacter outbreak in Havelock North, have highlighted failings in NZ’s regulatory system for drinking water. In this blog we consider how the new Water ...
Yes, an election is in the offing – and we all know that elections can be polarising, as parties of the left and right square off against each other. But we should not allow our party and political allegiances to obscure the fact that, in a properly functioning democracy like ...
Dr Sommer Kapitan, Auckland University of Technology, and Dr Patrick van Esch, Auckland University of TechnologyThe Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill will limit vape sales at dairies and service stations to only three flavours, and make vaping illegal in smokefree areas. Vaping laws will be more ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Aug 2, 2020 through Sat, Aug 8, 2020Editor's ChoiceFive Years After Speaking Out on Climate Change, Pope Francis Sounds an Urgent AlarmThe encyclical ‘Laudato Si’ motivated many people ...
From some quarters, incessant scaremongering. From others, it’s a full-on tilt into touching the alarmist buttons a little too readily (uncertain times make for very captive audiences with this angle of attack). The (so-called) Opposition (and merely regarding them as that seems to be a far looser term now ...
National Party leader - Judith CollinsElections often bring out the best and worst in politicians. Some rise to the occasion and provide us with a clear vision for the future. While others wallow in resentment and controversy, over-relying on attack politics to try to attain the interest of voters.That’s been ...
The attempts to sabotage Corbyn's leadership seems likely to do more damage than Corbyn supposedly ever could have done, even if all the stories about him were true:I was reluctant to say anything but this is too important, the full story needs to be told.Don’t let anyone ever tell ...
Good day to everyone. I’ve been asked by Mr Thinks to come here and talk to you all about my concerns regarding the government response to Covid-19. We’ve been living through this pandemic for, what seems like, years. Years and years and years. Why else would the National Party have ...
‘Good Economics for Hard Times’ should be on your reading list. New Zealand does not have a Minister of Labour. It has Ministers of Immigration and Workplace Relations and Safety but there is no minister with responsibility for the labour market. That responsibility was abolished in 2012 when ...
Back in the Kyoto era, the international climate change regime included a Clean Development Mechanism to fund emissions reduction projects in developing nations. Essentially someone would certify that a project - e.g. building a windfarm, or installing energy-efficient lightbulbs - would reduce emissions over and above "business-as-usual". The project would ...
As the classic MMP cartoon goes, just look at who is against it. Yesterday, the Hamilton City Council voted to use STV for its next two local body elections. The move was initially opposed by deputy mayor Geoff Taylor. The reason? Because a voting system which provided accurate representation and ...
On Wednesday evening (which in Parliament’s weird world technically was still Tuesday because urgency had been taken and so time stood still), MPs united to remove a pretty terrible piece of law from our statute books. No real fanfare or fireworks accompanied this action. Indeed, I didn’t even know about it ...
By Geoffrey Miller Prominent refugee advocate Murdoch Stephens says he is disappointed by Judith Collins’ reaction to Immigration New Zealand’s decision to grant refugee status to Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani. Judith Collins told media last month that “there’s a lot of concern in New Zealand about what they see as ...
Hello all. Judith here to talk about how National are going to take the election in September. The National Party prides itself its unity and cohesion. We are working together to deliver for New Zealanders. First of all, ee are a strong team. We are a very strong team. Our ...
Parliament has just begun the adjournment debate, signalling the effective end of this Parliament. So it seems like an appropriate time to assess Labour's term in office. Unfortunately, its a pretty dismal assessment. Labour campaigned on one thing: change. Not just a change in who got the top jobs and ...
Our climate change policies are insufficient to achieve our goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, according to independent assessor Climate Action Tracker: New Zealand won’t be carbon neutral by 2050 without much stronger policies, says an independent analysis by Climate Action Tracker. The non-profit highlighted a lack of active ...
That was clearly a huge explosion. Just after the explosion, we see a cloud of ‘fog’ moving outwards at high speed. This is a shockwave, rather similar to that which causes a sonic boom. The ‘fog’ is caused by water condensing from the atmosphere in areas of intense low pressure ...
Can we postpone this year’s election? Quite frankly, the political parties don’t seem ready for it, and aren’t about to offer voters the necessary policy choices for the unprecedented times we’re in. We’ve ended up with a campaign focused on scandal, personality and leadership, with a policy void that’s worse ...
It is the last sitting day of Parliament, and the last question time before the House is dissolved. So, are there any questions about the damning findings of the Hit and Run inquiry, and how the government plans to bring the military back under democratic control? Of course not. ...
Property speculator - John KeyThe National Party must be in dire straits to have to rely on John Key to campaign on their behalf. Not only has the former PM been in the news claiming the recently released unemployment figures aren’t accurate, the fool has also been promoting the opening ...
Nothing Too Drastic: Few would dispute that the Left, today, are few in number. Is their failure to make the public aware of and act upon the manifest failures of the present system attributable to their lack of active energy and intelligence? Or, is it simply because the Left’s ideas ...
by Don Franks This talk was given to the Wellington Anti Capitalist Alliance, fifteen years ago. The ultimate weapons of mass destruction so far seen on this planet have been used just twice, 60 years ago this month. August 6 and August 9 1945 witnessed the US atomic bombing ...
After I noticed that my name had been taken yet again in vain by my friendly antagonist Tom Hunter over at No Minister, I went over to see what the fuss was about. Nothing much, but then I discovered a post about the Operation Burnham Inquiry by Psycho Milt. I ...
The COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 was extended today, until December 1st or the tenth sitting day following the resumption of Parliament after the election. It seems like a necessary extension. While we currently have eradicated the virus in New Zealand, it is still banging at the door, and ...
One of the government's key policies - extracted by NZ First as part of its coalition agreement - is the "Provincial Growth Fund": $1 billion a year spent on creating jobs in rural New Zealand. Yesterday the Auditor-General issued a report on the fund, finding that it lacks transparency, and ...
The Warehouse, one of New Zealand's biggest retailers, has decided to stop selling coal. Good. Coal is a dirty, polluting fossil fuel, and the less of it we have out there, the better. Retailers choosing not to sell it sends a clear message that this is not a fuel we ...
The labour market statistics have been released, and they show that unemployment actually dropped last quarter. All told, there are 111,000 unemployed - 15,000 fewer than when the government took office. But before anyone thinks that the pandemic hasn't put people out of work, remember that this is for ...
Judy KavanaghI’m OK with wearing a CovidCard. But are you? There’s no point me doing it alone.The author modelling a (fake) CovidCard. I didn’t know much about the CovidCard proposal until I read Dave’s latest blog post. You would wear the card visibly on your person. It ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhy can’t I use the battery from my electric car ...
As many good things come in threes (as the saying goes), we are happy to announce a third partnership between Skeptical Science and other websites. Fakebook.eco in Brazil is joining Klimafakten.de in Germany and Nauka o Klimacie in Poland to leverage translated rebuttal material and to make the information readily available in other ...
This interview on RNZ with Ross Tucker, the scientist who headed a review of transgender athletes playing in women’s rugby, discusses the findings of the review and what it means for women in sports. The review that World Rugby undertook had a broad range of independent experts and included a ...
Siouxsie WilesThe restrictions in place for metropolitan Melbourne now are in some ways stricter than those that were in force during New Zealand’s COVID-19 lockdown. A curfew is in place and most people have to wear masks when they leave their home – neither of which happened in New ...
On Friday the Hit and Run inquiry delivered a devastating report which found that NZDF had systematically misled Ministers over civilian deaths. The report called into question civilian control of the military (and indeed, military control of the military), a fundamental principle of our democracy. So you'd expect our politicians ...
Let's Do This Again: What else can Jacinda do in a political environment so bereft of imagination and courage but seek a continuance? If she trades upon the extraordinary personal qualities that she has, miraculously, carried with her into the office of Prime Minister, then I, for one, will offer ...
How corrupt are the New Zealand Police? This corrupt: On 10 February 2019, Police attended a family harm incident. The suspect attempted to run the attending officers over in a driveway with his car, narrowly missing them, before fleeing the scene. A short pursuit followed, ending when the suspect stopped ...
Parliament's triennial Review of Standing Orders was released today, and it contains a number of welcome, if minor, improvements. The ones that caught my are: A move to encourage "pre-legislative engagement" - the government consulting widely on legislation before it is introduced - by promising easier passage (e.g. with ...
Lauren Vargo, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonGlaciers around the world are melting — and for the first time, we can now directly attribute annual ice loss to climate change. We analysed two years in which glaciers in New Zealand melted the most in at least four ...
Caroline Shaw, Anja MizdrakE-bikes are everywhere. Sales are booming and predicted to overtake sales of new cars in a few years. There were three times as many e-bikes and e-scooters imported into NZ in 2019 alone as there are e-cars in the entire country. You can’t go out in ...
New Zealand First is facing a difficult struggle to get re-elected, but Josh Van Veen, who was once a researcher for Winston Peters, argues that there is still a very significant section of cultural conservatives who oppose mass immigration and political correctness and might yet be won back over to ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk Many Americans these days seem unable to avoid controversy on practically any topic, so why not embrace the discord and wade into the especially volatile arena of nuclear energy? Advocates claim it’s the only way to meet global climate goals, ...
Can we trust New Zealand’s military? There must now be serious doubt, given the landmark report released on Friday concluding the investigation into allegations made in the book Hit and Run by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson about a 2010 SAS killing raid in Afghanistan. The most recent Colmar Brunton ...
In New Zealand, we've just had the report of the Hit and Run inquiry, which found that a New Zealand led raid had accidentally killed civilians, including a child. meanwhile, around the same time, the British SAS was conducting its own raids in Afghanistan, and theirs were a hell of ...
In addition to establishing a process for setting emissions reductions plans, the Zero Carbon Act established a process for managing the risks of climate change. The first part of this is the preparation of regular risk assessments, looking at the risks to our economy, society, environment, and ecology. The first ...
Over on The spinoff, Amnesty International's Meg de Ronde has a response to Friday's release of the Hit and Run report. And in response to Attorney-General David Parker's claim that the government was being "transparent" by releasing the report, its titled "we shouldn’t have to work this hard to get ...
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Rising Seas Could Menace Millions Beyond Shorelines, Study FindsAs climate change raises sea levels, storm surges and high tides will ...
There's an election next month, so you'd be expecting political parties to be telling us what they stand for and what they'd do if they'd win. But while the Greens have given us a detailed policy platform, and National has talked about roads and austerity, Labour, currently leading the polls ...
"Who's youse accusin' of innference?" Without the timely intervention of a team of top American political consultants and campaign experts, Boris Yeltsin would never have won his second term as President of the Russian Federation. The Russians waited 20 years to return the favour.WHEN IT COMES to the disinformation game, ...
As polling day in the American presidential election draws closer, things are looking bad for Donald Trump. The polls show that he is tracking well behind his Democrat rival. Most people assume that the President will be striving might and main to avoid what looks increasingly likely to be a ...
Our health professionals do an amazing job. Image credit: Wikipedia – Cardiac surgery. Finally, I have got back to these rankings. A long period in hospital and computer problems meant the June 2020 rankings were abandoned. Now, with a new personal defibrillator implanted in my chest and a new hard ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, July 26 through Sat, Aug 1, 2020Editor's ChoiceThe four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them allThe shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological ...
Over the last few days, reports have emerged of people travelling from New Zealand and testing positive for Covid-19 upon arrival at their destination. First in South Korea and now in Australia. What might these positive tests mean?They’re false-positives As Toby Morris and I have explained before, there are ...
Former National Minister - Wayne MappYou could tell that the Hit and Run book by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson was right on the money by the way former National Party Minister of Defence, Wayne Mapp, reacted to its now largely vindicated claims.Even though the recent inquiry into ...
So, the Hit and Run inquiry has reported back, and found some appalling shit at NZDF and NZSIS. And while they quibble a few of the details - the name of a dead child - they basicly uphold Hager and Stephenson's version of events. The SAS went to those villages. ...
We are failing to think though the interdependencies in an economy. We miss economist Bryan Philpott (1921-2000). I miss him personally – we used to have such great discussions – but this column is about how the nation misses his economic experience and wisdom. We tend to ...
Michelle Boag - LeakerThe Heron report (PDF) was released yesterday, and it was a bit disappointing to say the least. It correctly found that former National Party president Michelle Boag and National Party MP Hamish Walker were politically motivated in leaking peoples private medical information, but didn’t look further into ...
Adam Smith, Massey UniversityA recent global assessment of shark populations at 371 coral reefs in 58 countries found no sharks at almost 20% of reefs and alarmingly low numbers at many others. The study, which involved over 100 scientists under the Global FinPrint project, gave New Zealand a good ...
On different trajectories and from different ends of the political spectrum, last night’s One News/Colmar Brunton poll has the Green Party and ACT converging around the five percent mark. And, as odd as it may sound, they head into the election campaign with a lot in common.Putting the Greens and ...
Janet Stephenson, University of OtagoA proposed multibillion-dollar project to build a pumped hydro storage plant could make New Zealand’s electricity grid 100% renewable, but expensive new infrastructure may not be the best way to achieve this. New Zealand’s electricity generation is already around 80% renewable, with just over half ...
Truth In Advertising: Labour, it would seem, is the party that knows nothing about running the economy right up until the moment that it does. HOW DID LABOUR acquire its reputation for being a poor economic manager? As with most things political and historical, it’s a long story.In the beginning, the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Government rulemakers looking to decide how much money to spend to avoid adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere need a good estimate of what a warming climate will cost in social damages, for example through more extreme weather events. That point makes ...
Below is the list of gender-critical material which appeared on Redline from October 1, 2019 to October 31, 2019. Rainbow Tick threatens to pull Massey’s tick if lesbians are allowed to speak Freer Lives – a gender-critical Marxist site Freer Lives on Violence, debate and Britain’s Gender Recognition Act British ...
Fact Check: New Zealand’s own relationship with China might, however, be salvageable if our own Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was willing to equip its minister, Winston Peters, with a few facts. Legislating for the protection of national security – the very action our Foreign Minister is decrying – ...
I hope we can all agree that charging only certain returning expats for isolation costs is the right call. Instead of a blanket fee, which may have resulted in a small number of Kiwis deciding not to return home because of financial reasons, the Government has chosen to implement a ...
Back at the beginning of this government, the Greens made a foolish decision to support the Electoral Integrity Act - demanded by Winston Peters to keep his own backbench in line as part of his coalition deal with Labour - as an act of good faith within the coalition. It ...
We've announced that we will expand the Flexi-wage programme to support up to 40,000 more people into work, or to help them start their own business. It's yet another way we're helping keep our economy moving by getting people into work and training. Read on to find out more ...
Business subsidy of on average $7500, and up to $22,000, to hire unemployed New ZealandersUp to 40,000 jobs to be supported by $311 million investment in keeping New Zealanders off the unemployment benefitRing-fenced fund to help unemployed start their own business ...
This week was the last of the 52nd Parliament: a major milestone for our Government and a great opportunity to look back at all the progress we've made for New Zealanders. This week, we increased support for businesses to take on apprentices, improved access to hospital care in Northland, and ...
Kia orana and kia ora koutou katoa. It is a privilege to be able to speak in this adjournment debate and to mark and acknowledge the fact that we are now two years and 10 months into the conclusion of a parliamentary term that has been extraordinary in so many ...
On 1 August, we marked the anniversary of Jacinda Ardern becoming the Leader of the Labour Party. On that day in 2017, Leader Andrew Little nominated Jacinda Ardern to succeed him and lead the party to victory.Now, three years on, we look back at some of the key moments ...
With the June 2020 quarter showing underemployment increasing, the Green Party is calling for a Guaranteed Minimum Income and an increase to the abatement threshold to ensure everyone has a dignified income. ...
We went hard and we went early in our health response to COVID-19, and we did everything we could to cushion the economic impact too. In fact, we can fill every letter of the alphabet with the steps we took to fight COVID-19 and ensure we were in a position ...
Investing in our people, backing businesses, and upgrading infrastructure and housing throughout the country - it's been another week of progress for New Zealanders as we deliver our plan to recover and rebuild. ...
July was another busy month, packed with key investments aimed at progressing our economic recovery as we rebuild New Zealand. We extended support for businesses, helped create jobs through local infrastructure projects, and kept working to clean up our waterways so Kiwis can access safe clean water. Check out the ...
The Green Party is calling for the Defence Force Chiefs in place between 2010-2017 to front up and explain how dishonesty, process and policy failures within the Defence Force led to ‘a series of incorrect statements in briefings to ministers and public releases’ regarding alleged breaches of international torture prevention ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
The Government is stepping up action to deal with environmentally harmful products – including plastic packaging, tyres and e-waste – before they become waste. ...
The Green Party are ensuring that New Zealanders who were overseas when COVID-19 hit will not be charged for the cost of isolation or quarantine if they return home to live. ...
It's been another week of creating jobs, supporting local businesses, and investing in infrastructure up and down the country - all of which are helping to keep our economy moving post-COVID-19. ...
Law changes to end tenure review and provide for better management of Crown pastoral lands in the South Island high country were considered by Parliament today with the first reading of the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill says Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage. ...
The Green Party have secured legislative amendments in a bill expected to pass third reading this week, to ensure better rules for school teachers and staff, so they can de-escalate children with diverse needs and cognitive differences, such as autism, rather than using unnecessary and often traumatising force. ...
Managed isolation charges for returnees will come into force from 12.01am Tuesday 11th August, after they passed their last cabinet milestone today, Housing Minister Megan Woods said. “The new charging system balances the rights of New Zealanders to return home and helps reduce pressure on the managed isolation and quarantine ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Henry Puna have welcomed the completion of phase one in the establishment of a travel bubble between New Zealand and the Cook Island. Negotiations on the text of an ‘Arrangement to Facilitate Quarantine-Free Travel ...
The Government has launched a new online, phone and onsite service to help New Zealanders connect to a range of employment support and products for workers and businesses affected by COVID-19, announced Minister of Education Chris Hipkins and Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. Connected.govt.nz is a one-stop-shop for jobseekers, ...
Security guards contracted to the Ministry of Social Development will be paid at least the Living Wage from next month supporting the Government’s commitment towards fair pay and employment conditions, announced Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. “MSD was among the first government agencies to pay its employees the living ...
The Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today launched Te Mana o te Taiao, the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy - a way forward that envisions Aotearoa New Zealand as a place where ecosystems are healthy and resilient, and people embrace the natural world. “Many of New Zealand’s plants and wildlife species ...
“Pacific languages, cultures and identity are essential to the health, wellbeing and lifetime success of our Pacific peoples and their communities in Aotearoa. The strength and resilience of Pacific Aotearoa is not only vital to their own prosperity but integral to the prosperity of all New Zealanders, and is particularly ...
· $38 million to help schools cover unexpected costs related to COVID-19 · $69 million upgrade for online learning · $107 million contingency funding to support school construction suppliers facing additional costs due to the lockdown. The Government is releasing $214 million from the COVID-19 response and recovery fund to ...
Despite the Government installing safety upgrades around the country, people should still take care around rail crossings, said Transport Minister Phil Twyford launching Rail Safety Week. Phil Twyford said installing safety infrastructure is crucial, but we are encouraging people to be more careful around trains too. “We’re making good progress ...
The Government is providing a cash injection to help Palmerston North City Council complete a programme to provide 78 social housing units for vulnerable tenants. The $4.7 million to build 28 units in the Papaioea Place redevelopment comes from the $3 billion set aside for infrastructure in the Government’s COVID-19 ...
A pest free Banks Peninsula/Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū is one step closer with a $5.11 million boost to accelerate this project and create jobs, announced Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage in Canterbury today. “This is a game changer for this ambitious project to restore the native wildlife and plants on Ōtautahi/Christchurch’s doorstep ...
A Government grant of $6.4 million will expand the Pettigrew Arena in Taradale with new indoor courts of national standard. “The project is likely to take 18 months with approximately 300 people employed through the process,” Grant Robertson said. “The expansion will increase the indoor court space up to 11 ...
The Far North tourist destination of Mangonui is to receive Government funding to improve waterfront infrastructure, open up access to the harbour and improve water quality, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has announced. A total of $6.5 million from the $3 billion set aside in the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund ...
The Government has re-affirmed its commitment to supporting the hosting of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, which the ICC has delayed from 2021 to 2022. “This is obviously a disappointing decision for cricket players and fans around the world and for the White Ferns and their supporters here at ...
Cyclists and walkers will now have a safer way to get around Taupō, Tūrangi, and between Hamilton and Cambridge, with funding for shared paths and Te Awa River Ride, Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. “The Te Awa River Ride is the latest part of massive growth ...
Six major cycle routes will be completed in Christchurch thanks to funding from the Government’s investment in shovel-ready infrastructure as part of the COVID-19 recovery Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. $125 million will be invested to kick-start construction and fund the completion of the following cycleway ...
Plans are underway for a brand new state-of-the-art hub for Whanganui’s justice and social agencies, following confirmation the ageing Whanganui Central Police Station is to be replaced. Police Minister Stuart Nash has announced $25 million in new infrastructure spending to improve facilities for the wider community, and for staff who ...
An adjustment payment has been made to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu under the relativity mechanisms in their 1995 and 1997 Treaty of Waitangi settlements, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little announced today. The latest payments to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu are $2,700,000 and $2,600,000 respectively to ensure the ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Transport Minister Phil Twyford today kicked off the start of the Auckland NZ Upgrade Programme rail projects which will support over 400 jobs and help unlock our biggest city. Both ministers marked the start of enabling works on the third main rail line project ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment of $3.78 million in Wairoa will create much needed economic stimulus and jobs, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. PGF projects announced today include: $200,000 loan to Nuhaka Kiwifruit Holdings Ltd (operated by Pine Valley Orchard Ltd) to increase the productivity ...
Tenants in public and Māori housing may be benefiting from their own affordable renewable energy in future – a fund to trial renewable energy technology for public and Māori housing has today been announced by Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods and Associate Minister for Housing (Māori Housing) Nanaia Mahuta. ...
Hokianga will receive $2.7 million to redevelop four of its wharves and upgrade its water supply, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Far North District Council will receive $1.8 million from the Provincial Growth Fund for the work on the wharves. “The work will include the construction of ...
A $350 million Residential Development Response Fund is being established to support the residential construction sector and to minimise the economic impact from COVID-19, the Housing Minister Dr Megan Woods has announced. “The Residential Development Response Fund will help to progress stalled or at-risk developments that support our broader housing ...
As part of a broader plan to divert waste from landfill, the Government today announced $10.67 million for new infrastructure as part of the Resource Recovery Network across the Auckland region. “This key investment in Auckland’s community recycling network is part of the Government’s Infrastructure Reference Group ‘shovel ready’ projects ...
The Government is investing $45 million in the first stage of an ambitious urban development project for Tauranga that will employ up to 250 people and help the region grow, Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says the funding has been allocated out of the $3 billion ...
Getting low-emission trucks on the road is a step closer with investment in infrastructure to support hydrogen vehicles, the Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods has announced. The Infrastructure Reference Group has provisionally approved $20 million for New Plymouth company Hiringa Energy to establish a nationwide network of hydrogen-fuelling stations. ...
A new trades training centre to upskill the local workforce will be built in the South Waikato town of Tokoroa through funding from the Government’s COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund, Education Minister Chris Hipkins and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones have announced. The Government will contribute $10.84 million from ...
The Government has agreed to repeal part of the Oranga Tamariki Act subsequent children provisions, Minister for Children Tracey Martin announced today. “There are times when children need to go into care for their safety – the safety and care of children must always be paramount,” Minister Martin said. “But ...
A $1.5 million boost to grow primary mental health and addiction services for Pacific peoples in Auckland, Hamilton and Canterbury will lead to better outcomes for Pacific communities, Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa says. Pasifika Futures has received funding to expand services through The Fono, Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest by ...
Twenty-two projects to boost the sustainability and climate resilience of New Zealand’s food and fibres sector have been announced today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The $18m funding will deliver practical knowledge to help farmers and growers use their land more sustainably, meet environmental targets, remain prosperous, and better understand ...
Employment Minister Willie Jackson welcomes an initiative that assists employers to get mature workers into New Zealand small businesses. The disadvantages that older people face in the workplace was highlighted in the whole of Government Employment Strategy. In order to address this, a Mature Workers Toolkit has been developed and ...
New Zealand and Australia reaffirmed today the need for the closest possible collaboration as they tackle a global environment shaped by COVID-19, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said. “In these challenging times, our close collaboration with Australia is more vital than ever,” said Mr Peters. Mr Peters and his Australian ...
The recovery and forensic examination of the loader driven by survivor Russell Smith means the underground team are now moving into an area of the Pike River Mine that has not been seen since the explosion, Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-entry Andrew Little said. “The fifth and last robot ...
The Government has confirmed a community-wide trial of CovidCard technology as it explores options for COVID-19 contact tracing. “Effective contact tracing is a vital part of the COVID-19 response,” Minister of Health Chris Hipkins said. “While manual processes remain the critical component for contact tracing, we know digital solutions can ...
The government is proposing changes to aquaculture legislation to improve the process for allocating and transferring aquaculture assets to iwi. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash has introduced the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill to Parliament. It proposes a limited new discretionary power for Te Ohu Kaimoana Trustee Limited (ToKM). ...
The Minister of Justice has today introduced the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill – the next step in the ongoing programme of work to fix the failed 2014 Family Court reforms led by then Justice Minister Judith Collins. The Bill arises from the report of the Independent ...
A new Department of Conservation (DOC) action plan tackles the impacts of climate change on New Zealand’s biodiversity and DOC managed infrastructure including tracks, huts and cultural heritage. Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage says extreme weather events around the country have really brought home our vulnerability to changing weather patterns. ...
A heavily scaled back international Antarctic season will commence this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods have confirmed. “Antarctica is the only continent that is COVID-19 free,” Mr Peters said. “Throughout the global pandemic, essential operations and long-term science have continued at ...
The Government is providing up to $30 million to help fund the NZ Campus of Innovation and Sport in Upper Hutt - an investment that will create 244 jobs. “The sports hub is designed to be a world-leading shared service for a range of sports, offering the level of facilities ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today transport projects currently in construction will continue at pace due to extra Government support for transport projects to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. To keep the $16.9 billion 2018-21 National Land Transport Programme going the Government has allocated funding from the COVID Response and ...
$50 million for further rural broadband digital connectivity has been allocated from the $3 billion infrastructure fund in the COVID Response and Recovery Fund has been announced by Shane Jones, Minister for Infrastructure and Kris Faafoi, Minister for Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media. The investment will go to boosting broadband ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Uri Gal, Associate Professor in Business Information Systems, University of Sydney The recent questioning of the heads of Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple in the US Congress has highlighted the threat their practices pose to our privacy and democracy. However these big ...
Good habits start young, and with Money Week this week, now is a great time to look at how we can support and nourish our kids’ financial journeys writes Banqer’s Simon Brown. For some reason, a lot of people see money as a boring topic. But the fact is, it’s a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne This week’s federal Newspoll, conducted August 5-8 from a sample of 1,509, gave the Coalition a 52-48 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since the last Newspoll, three weeks ago. ...
A tender for underwater inspection services at the abandoned oil field off the coast of Taranaki has shed light on the dubious state of its subsea infrastructure. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Plank, Professor in Mathematics, University of Canterbury Our latest modelling shows New Zealanders need to redouble their efforts to keep track of people they meet, if we are to have a chance of controlling any re-emergence of COVID-19. The director general ...
Local Government New Zealand’s (LGNZ) Regional Sector has today welcomed the launch of Te Mana o te Taiao, the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy, citing robust collaboration with iwi, regional councils and private landowners and leadership from ...
The High Court has ruled today that Greenpeace is entitled to register as a charity and that the Charities Registration Board was in error for declining the environmental campaigning organisation’s application. In a summary of the judgement posted online ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Dobson, Professor and Dean of Education, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington The English language in education today is all-pervasive. “Hear more English, speak more English and become more successful” has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some say it’s already ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stuart Richards, Lecturer in Screen Studies, University of South Australia Review: Welcome to Chechnya, screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival Welcome to Chechnya, screening online as part of MIFF 68½, is a bracing documentary. This film is part of a queer ...
It’s become fashionable among some political circles to advocate for a laissez-faire approach to debt, on the basis that the government can issue as much debt as it likes – for as long as it likes. But there’s one big drawback to ‘just print more money’ argument, writes Pattrick Smellie ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Australia’s aged care sector was “underprepared” to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak and federal authorities had no specific plan for it, according to a stinging indictment from Peter Rozen QC, senior counsel assisting the royal ...
A Productivity Commission report finding was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of disease transmission dynamics, and now that error has itself been transmitted in the media and into the election campaign, write Nic Steyn, Mike Plank, Alex James, Rachelle Binny, Audrey Lustig and Shaun Hendy of Te ...
Latest from the Beehive Here’s hoping the hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into Northland from the Provincial Growth Fund and other government programmes do much more to promote the region’s economic and social wellbeing than they are doing to enhance Shane Jones’ election prospects. He is bound to be ...
The first Auckland Central debate took place last night, despite the lack of a National candidate. Josie Adams went along to watch Helen White, Chlöe Swarbrick and the rest.The Auckland Central electorate stretches from the depths of Grafton across the Hauraki Gulf to Aotea (Great Barrier). Its residents are Waiheke’s ...
Kiwibank was right to refuse the business of sex-trade operators exploiting women and children, says Wahine Toa Rising, a newly-formed organisation led by survivors of the trade in New Zealand. Spokeswoman Ally Marie Diamond said "we were gutted ...
During the worst days of the Covid-19 outbreak in New Zealand, Matamata was right at the heart of it all. Alex Braae went to the Waikato town to ask people how they’re getting on now.On the signs heading out to the Hobbiton Movie Set about 10 minutes away from the ...
The government has announced a pay increase for security guards at the Ministry of Social Development as the Labour Party makes a commitment to government agency workers for fair pay and working conditions. ...
“As sure as God made little apples, she would have reinvented herself and she will be ripping someone off in England as we speak,” predicted a former colleague of Joanne Harrison. A new investigation reveals the charming fraudster, who stole ...
Lihir is the second mine in Papua New Guinea to report a confirmed covid-19 case as the national total of infections reached 214 at the weekend. Newcrest Mining Limited confirmed that a 30-year-old male, a mine employee who had flown in from the capital Port Moresby on July 30, had ...
E te rangatira, e te tohunga, e te Tiati, haere, haere, haere atu ra. Haere ki o tupuna, no ratou nga taonga i tuku iho ki a koe, hei whangai mai ki a matou. ...
Commitment from all political parties to implementing the new Te Mana o te Taiao - Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy is vital to protecting our future, says Forest & Bird. “The Strategy clearly says that New Zealand’s environment ...
The 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War will be acknowledged on 15 August, with a commemorative service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington, Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage Chief Executive Bernadette ...
New Zealand's total fertility rate has reached an all-time low, with an average of 1.71 children per woman in New Zealand, well below population replacement level. “ Families: Ever Fewer or No Children , How Worried Should We Be? “ - a report ...
Joint Press Release: NextElection, Scoop.co.nz, ScoopCitizen NextElection , a technology platform empowering democracy and Government accountability, and Scoop Independent News have partnered to strengthen citizen participation in the 2020 New Zealand General ...
Since March 15 2019, a string of lone actor, far-right copycat atrocities provide important clues to the kind of transnational, online movement we now confront, writes Emanuel Stoakes.Before storming the Al Noor Mosque, the would-be killer dressed in military fatigues, attempted a livestream and signalled his intent on an image ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cordelia Fine, Professor, History & Philosophy of Science program, School of Historical & Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne How useful are the well-known and hotly contested categories of “male brain” and “female brain”? Among experts, nobody really questions that anatomical sex differences ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University Earlier this month, there were media reports that Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly had posted to Facebook advocating the anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, as a treatment for COVID-19. Kelly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carissa Bonner, Research Fellow, University of Sydney If the media is anything to go by, you’d think people who believe coronavirus myths are white, middle-aged women called Karen. But our new study shows a different picture. We found men and people aged ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graeme Pearman, Professorial Fellow, Australian-German Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne There is global interest in the potential for a hydrogen economy, in part driven by a concern over climate change and the need to move away from fossil fuels. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mehmet Aslan, Honorary Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong Australian universities are expected to lose billions of dollars in revenue due to the impacts of COVID-19. The estimated lost revenue from international students alone is A$18 billion by ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Owain Emslie, Senior Associate, Grattan Institute Grattan Institute research published today shows the average 25-year-old woman who goes on to have a child can expect to earn A$2 million less by the time she is 70 than the average 25-year-old man who ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Beck Wise, Lecturer in Professional Writing, The University of Queensland You might have scrolled right by Annastacia Palaszczuk’s recent quote posts if you saw them on Instagram – just another lifestyle influencer posting a “deep” quote – but when she (or her ...
Welcome to Election Live for August 10, bringing you the latest on election 2020 and other breaking news. For key dates in the election seasonclick here. For all you need to know about the cannabis referendum click here. For the assisted dying referendum click here. Policy launches tomorrow. Get ...
New Zealand First and leader Winston Peters are up against it this year in the general elections if the polls are to be believed, but the political veteran shows no sign of giving up yet. ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Labour launches campaign while National releases list, frantic final days at parliament wrapped, and new poll shows Shane Jones in trouble in Northland.Some would say the campaign has been underway for months in a proxy form, but officially, it’s now ...
Paula Morris on her former writing student, now the author of a worldwide smash, Auckland novelist Rose Carlyle On a mild Wednesday evening last week, I attended the launch for a debut novel. There were more than 100 guests crowding the ground floor of the National Library in Auckland. There ...
Let's not delude ourselves, temporary migrant workers are being exploited in this country - and it's nothing new, writes Christina Stringer The reality of slavery, human trafficking and the exploitation of temporary migrant workers in New Zealand was exposed last month with the successful conviction of a 66-year-old man in the Napier ...
Belinda Cordwell remains New Zealand's highest-ranked singles tennis player, having climbed to No.17 in the world. But today you'll find her chasing sheep rather than a fuzzy green ball. You may remember Belinda Cordwell came within two victories of being New Zealand’s only woman Grand Slam tennis champion. But you might ...
How far away are vaccines which could end the pandemic and how many doses can be made quickly? Finding a vaccine which protects against the coronavirus which causes Covid-19 is seen as the best way to stop the continued spread of the disease. It's estimated around 70 percent of the ...
Kiwibank's initial plans to blacklist the adult entertainment industry ran into opposition from the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective, but the bank is being urged to stick to its guns by Wahine Toa Rising - a new trans-Tasman group set up by ex-sex workers. Yvonne van Dongen reports Last month Kiwibank rolled ...
The wife of a Chinese dissident killed in a recent car crash says she’s struggling to raise her children without the support of her husband - the family’s sole income earner Xi Weiguo (48) died in a car crash in Tokoroa on July 21, along with fellow pro-democracy campaigner Wang ...
The Ministry of Health; "The term unborn child is not a scientific term and does not have a commonly accepted definition." The Prime Minister said in September 2018, "If you ask me why I'm in politics, my answer will be simple: children." ...
We do not have to roll along with the status quo. We are asking New Zealanders to choose help over handcuffs, prevention over prisons, and healing over punishment, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira.It is said that the first Pacific voyagers to sail to these lands visualised this place before they reached ...
In the blur of the last week of this parliament, a law that discriminated against family disability carers was torn from the books. It’s one of those moments when we can see why political activism of all kinds actually matters, writes Andrew Geddis.Last week, on Wednesday evening (which in parliament’s ...
Binge-drinking in teenagers has dropped dramatically in the past 20 years - but the reasons for that are complex Teenage binge-drinking has "dropped off the cliff" in the last 20 years but until now, no one really knew why. A new paper, What explains the decline in adolescent binge-drinking in New ...
A senior journalism lecturer is urging the foreign media to respect New Zealand’s strict reporting restrictions for the sentencing of the gunman who carried out the Christchurch mosque attacks last year. Brenton Tarrant will be sentenced in the High Court in Christchurch beginning on Monday, August 24. Eighteen overseas and ...
Celebrity agent Ryan Serhant is promoting the sale, a snip at $24 million. It looks so good, why let pesky details like closed borders and foreign buyer bans stop you?Along with panoramic views, adventure sports and fine wines, the New Zealand pitch for wealthy Americans now includes the lure of ...
The Green’s latest housing policy is a lot of wishful thinking, National’s Housing spokesperson Jacqui Dean says. “Blue-sky thinking has never been the Green’s problem, but delivery has. “The Government partners talked a big game on housing ...
Studying a Bachelor of Arts at AUT helped Guled Mire understand his place in the world, so that he can make a difference in his community. Video: AUTBy Simon SmithGuled Mire says his new Fulbright NZ scholarship to study at an Ivy League university in the United States ...
Kia ora everyone. Thank you all for coming here today. Thank you to the community for having us today, I’m proud that this is my neighbourhood! And thank you to the Housing Foundation for having us, as we announce the next exciting pillar of ...
The Green Party has unveiled its housing plan which aims to get the record-high number of people off the social housing waiting list, while improving the size and quality of the rental market. ...
In its third major policy announcement, the Green Party has revealed a suite of plans to subsidise community-provided rental housing and boost the state housing build programme, Marc Daalder reports Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic and global economic meltdown, New Zealand's housing crisis has continued unabated. House prices are still surging and the ...
By Patrick Makis in Buka Contact tracing has begun for the Autonomous Region of Bougainville’s first covid-19 case. The 22-year-old male, who had returned from Port Moresby on an Air Niugini flight on July 29, is stable and is being isolated in Arawa town. ABG’s Deputy Controller, Health Secretary Clement ...
Open mike 10/02/2015 
Open mike is your post.
NewsHub Nation has launched a new podcast, "Supplementary Question". Their inaugural episode is about the OIA, and asks "is our most important transparency law fit for purpose?" While they interviewed Justice Minister Andrew Little and Ombudsman Peter Boshier for this, there's not actually a lot of them in there, and ...1 hour ago
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Key has a lot of defending to do today.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11399194
That wasn’t when they found out though, was it. I wonder whether it was a day. Or two. A day or two certainly means at least a week in National Party English.
In any event, they found out before the 2011 election.
Why do they want to look so donkey deep in this? Just how much involvement has the National Party had in Sabin’s activities?
Think of johnny as the goalkeeper, they have to get past a well resourced defense of audrey, clare, armstrong, editorial authors, tvnz, radio rantland etc etc who love to protect the brand.
They have to get past that lot who are organised by their “trainer” Mark Textor too.
we are lead to believe the NBR as Hooton outlined that they were aware of issue/s surrounding Sabin dating back to 2011, then using your ‘better’ judgment as PM wouldn’t you personally sit down with Sabin to get clarification that no more trouble can be expected. When you also consider Key had short listed Sabin for a Ministers position, and was about to appoint him to chair the law & order select committee.
I find Key’s hands off approach negligent, or just too unbelievable for Kiwi’s to be expected to swallow. If no plausible reasons are forthcoming in parliament tomorrow, and given the seriousness of the matter a full independent inquiry into corruption should take place.
Depends on how much power the Sabin-enabler wing of the party has.
Yes dirty play within the National Party. Joyce contracted Sabin & son to do a number on Collins who is his only real challenger to take over from Key. She is just too tough and has a shrewd legal mind, batting the milk saga away with relative ease. It wasn’t till Brook Sabin went after her like a blood hound did Key finally feel safe to clip her wings. He also culled some of her MP fan base sending a signal to others by demoting Maurice Williamson one of her biggest fans.
So in the end Collins will be back sooner than people thought possible, after she goes after Joyce with a little help from her rightwing friends. This is the start of the self destruct of the Nat’s. Collins will be leaking all sorts of hits on Key and Joyce and anyone else that stands in her way.
ACT smells blue blood and are looking to capitalise, isn’t this correct Gosman?
The government has enough for failing charter schools, but not enough for books.
Further shame on Peter Dunne.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11399117
The man has no shame as you know it Paul, an A grade trougher and willing sellout merchant. Bet schools in his electorate are well resourced.
Did you spot the glaring contradiction in that article?
“Mr Macnaught said teachers who wanted hard copies of a specific book would be able to borrow them from the National Library, through a request sent by the school library.”
This is completely contradicted by
“Lending changes
• The National Library will this year stop allowing teachers and school librarians to request non-fiction books on a particular topic.”
The second quote stating the lending changes is verified by this article yesterday on RNZ
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20166464
This is a government of the liars, by the liars for the very wealthy and the poor gullible.
I applaud them going to digital copies but to drop the hard copy format before everyone has digital access in entrenching the digital divide. Of course, once we take in to account National’s ongoing attacks on education creating a less educated populace does seem to be their goal.
One very bewildered and intimidated fat guy….
This will give the Sabin apologists something to cheer about: showercam in prisons
“Dehumanising a person and taking away their rights makes it harder to rehabilitate them.” Michael Bott.
So it will increase the crime rate too. Bravo authoritarians. Who needs a secret prison when you can get away with it in the open?
Wonder when the government is going to have to pay for its appalling mismanagement of the economy.
Putting all its bets on dairy starting to look like a really stupid idea.
Still, we’ve got a ‘rock star’ economy. What a joke!
‘Deutsche Bank is painting a grim picture of the impact of dry conditions on the dairy industry, predicting it could be worse than the 2012-13 drought.
Two years ago global prices soared by 40 per cent because of Chinese demand, boosting New Zealand dairy farmers as they moved out of drought, but the bank does not believe this scenario will play out again.’
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/dairy/65977073/bank-bearish-on-droughts-effect
I wonder what Deutschebank’s angle is. Obviously it suits their interests to tell this story at this time; perhaps it’s even true.
I wouldn’t take a banker’s word for it though.
QFT
Probably lining up the repossessions of farm land so that they can sell it for a huge profit to offshore investors.
Feathering the nest, then off to Hawaii with his lifetime salary for being a PM for over 5 years, just to top up his already overflowing coffers. Lovely photo album to keep him company if he gets lonely.
(it wd be interesting to hear northshoredocs’ take on this take-down/expose..
..seeing as he claims ‘there is nothing to see’ here in nz..eh..?..)
“..John Oliver Eviscerates the Stunningly Corrupt Practices of Big Pharma..
..John Oliver dug deep into the corrupt practices of the pharmaceutical industry in a 17-minute rant Sunday –
– that will be one for the ages.
It’s a must-watch video tha lays bare just how deeply invested Big Pharma is in getting doctors to prescribe their drugs to millions of people –
– no matter what..”
(cont..)
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/video-john-oliver-eviscerates-stunningly-corrupt-practices-big-pharma
so i guess we are expected to believe that here in nz..
..big-pharma/doctors are squeaky-clean…
..eh..?
..and if we still believe that..we also believe in the tooth-fairy…
..maybe northshoredoc wd fancy being a whistleblower..?
..detailing for us the hows/whys of it happening here..
..y;know..’conferences’ all funded/paid-for by big pharma..?
..plus what oliver details..
Why wait for him? Expose it yourself. What’s the next conference paid for by big pharma in Aotearoa?
‘cos a whistleblower from inside will gain more traction..
I’ve had a time or two when a doctor has pushed drugs on me when I didn’t need them.
Very good expose by Ben Goldacre on Bad Pharma, how drug companies foist drugs on doctors who then foist them on patients:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/bad-pharma/
One to particularly watch out for is statins. They nearly drove my old man round the bend; he seemed to be going crazy but when Psych Services for the Elderly tested him and did a scan, nothing was revealed out of the ordinary.
My mother had started following horror stories about statins and I did some internet research. We took him off them and in about a month all his erratic/crazy behaviour and paranoid delusions stopped.
There’s a massive amount of anecdotal evidence, and slowly-accumulating research evidence, that statins can have very serious side effects. Some people seem to handle them Ok, but a lot of people – abut 12 out of 15 cases I know of personally – where people had all kinds of side effects ranging from kidney problems to paranoid delusions.
They don’t really do much for most people’s cholesterol, plus there is now plenty of evidence that cholesterol in and of itself isn’t such a problem.
When my mother, brother and I decided to take the old man off statins his doctor wasn’t at all pleased. But other doctors and various medical professionals I’ve spoken to since are much more up-to-date with trhe problems re statins.
Phil
Keep up the good work on this phill my mum was sick as recently, the doctor had here on a cocktail of drugs after research on the net she discovered that they were a bad mix and she didn’t really need one of them.
When she told the the doc he rolled his eye’s and muttered something about the internet then said stop taking it if you want. She’s much improved without it.( the step fathers kidneys nearly stopped awhile back as well due to the amount of voltaren they had him on while he waited for a bionic bit.)
Funeral Insurance is a very very profitable business for Cigna.
It is lousy value for those who buy the products: when contributions are discontinued the Insurer holds the cream; people are less likely to “claim” in their younger years.
Every day I see Michael Jones use his legend status to front the very heavy advertising aimed at poorer Pacific Island families. Keith Quinn has also fronted Cigna ads.
Michael Jones is failing in his leadership responsibilities by fronting these ads.
plus of course..many of the customers for the funeral-ads..
..are those who have died prematurely from consuming the fast-food junk jones peddles..
..i have been following/commenting on this christian who prays over (sorry..!..that’s preys upon) the poor/his own people..for some time now..
..and i am/have been quite toxic/scathing on the business-interests of michael jones…
..to me he is the current exemplar of hypocrisy/exploitation of own people..
http://whoar.co.nz/?s=michael+jones
Thanks Phil, good links there. Especially Tapu Misa’s piece.
where is tapu misa..?
..has the herald fired her..?
I’ve long thought that any endorsement by a celebrity needs to devote 1/6th of the advert time / space (either in print or on radio / tv, minimum 5 seconds) to the celebrity plainly saying:
“I have been paid $xxxx by [company] to appear in this advertisement”.
In the case of TV, it would require a head-and-shoulders close up of the celebrity speaking directly to camera without any music playing.
You mean Cigna who did not pay out the fire-fighters in New York after September 11. That Cigna?
As far as I can make out, insurance itself is fraud. They take the money and then try not to pay out and this happens in NZ as well as I was reading in an article the other day (which I can’t find now – think it was in the NZHerald). This is a related article.
Big corporations have turned societally useful activities into scams and rorts.
Par for the course in this game of crony corporate capitalism that we have landed ourselves in.
‘Things’ by John Key:
There are the things we remember
That we forgot,
The things we forgot,
That we remember,
And then there are the other things,
The things we forgot we forgot.
Lolz 😀
Observations On The Day Before Waitangi Day 2015. A Deafening Silence!
A bit eerie Trav. Thanks for the report.
Managed to go to Waitangi with the kids for the first time last year.
Similar to what you described, and notable for the lack of non-Maori NZ attendees. Most non-performers seemed to be tourists.
The blue line was there in force last year as well. Looking ridiculously out to sea.
Went there last year too, shame about the weather. But really cool to see Maori celebrating alongside (a few) Pakeha! It’s a great day, sadly the good news doesn’t get air time.
From the very get-go it seemed like the locals had made a conscious decision to stay away and ignore Key, thereby removing any hope he had of making hay over disturbances.
Hi vto your are correct there, we dont want to give key any more credibility than his party loyals do, we also don’t want to be locked out of te marae by the thickening blue line, that just cause’s frustration and then sometimes violence and then key will be right … in his and his party loyals own feeble minds.
why would we want to celebrate this day of the great colonial lie?
Hi BLiP, if you’re around this one’s for you.
Yesterday we had a discussion about doing some crowd funding, a give a little campaign was suggested, to publish your chronicles of Key’s lies.
The motivation for this and benefits of publishing such a book are outlined in this thread, starting here:
It’s your work we’re talking about so your thoughts are required before we go any further.
I think it could be done and should be done. It’s time there was a public response to the media’s lack of holding Key to account, in a post Dirty Politics NZ. We can’t leave it to opposition parties to do all all the work. As NZer’s, ordinary people, we can also hold a mirror up to the govt.
If you think the idea is daft, just say, and I’ll drop it.
The idea is on a par with Bob Jones “Achievements of the third Labour government” which consisted entirely of blank pages… hee hee what a hoot that was…
same same for key key
Get into it
(moved from below. Posted at same time as Rosie)
Been thinking about BliP’s list, and if it could work as an interactive website.
(I realise that the conversation has been about printed form, but just putting this out there…)
Trying to think of a framework that would be appealing, and allow people to dip into it now and again, while also keeping track of new and relevant material. (And we all know that is going to happen.)
So far:
1. Create a “wall of lies” like filmforaction.org ‘s Wall of Films
2. You could also have a Top 100, and allow people to search by interest
3. Also a calendar that shows the lies by dots, so you can view clusters and the sheer number of them.
4. Include a separate category for Brain Fades/or my office statements
5. On The Century of Self – there is a clip where they were trying to show the public how to avoid being manipulated by the media. Eg. analyse the articles by headline tone, emotive words logic etc. A big undertaking, but one that would be interesting to see how little attention is paid to the failings of National, and the imagined bottle of wine of Labour.
6. Maintain some kind of timeline that matches media reports with problems, and diversions. (I think of this diversion technique as “You don’t know how lucky you are!”)
7. Try and find someone who can critique and maintain something similar to Russell Brand’s Trews – True News, subscribe here – subscribe here!
i think the online-option is more feasible/preferable to dead-tree publishing..
Phillip. See response below to Molly. It’s as much about then power of group work as providing info.
Online is easy enough to setup
plus no trees have to die…
..and no need for a major fundraising-exercise..
..it’s a no-brainer..really..
No need to pour cold water all over the idea phillip.
Are books redundant in your view? Should we close down the libraries as they would do in Liverpool?
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/10/writers-join-fight-to-save-liverpool-libraries-caitlin-moran-cathy-cassidy
And re your comment at 10.2.2, Is Whoar a roaring success changing the way NZer’s think and bringing down the establishment?
i am just pointing out the inevitabilities/difficulties of doing a dead-tree book..
..that won’t be present if done online..
..in no way am i dissing the idea..i have advocated an online-version previously..
..(what have you got against trees..?..)
..and did you feel like lashing out did you..?
..and as i am involved in the dissemination of news/information/ideas..
..i wd hope that information wd change wrong/entrenched ideas/mores..(c.f..cannabis..vegan..as the two obvious ones that i don’t see anyone else covering..)
..but ‘a roaring success’ wd b in the eye of the beholder..wouldn’t it..?
..wd u look at it if someone else told you it was worth the effort..?
..do u need those nudges/group/herd-approvals..do you..?
(if it helps..a site-audit by zeald told me that over 20,000 other websites..spread over 96 countries..
..have whoar on their best/recommended-sites lists..)
..and somehow..that i do commentaries on questiontime..
..cd become more relevant/readable in the reasonably near future..
..you’d think..?
It could work well as toilet book with every second page in it, tear off too ply with keys mug on it.
lol yep. Only problem is, if you print teflon john on the paper, it will be too slippery and shit won’t stick to it.
“..and did you feel like lashing out did you..?”
Sorry phillip. Saying the online option only over the printed version was “no brainer” got me. I read this as “your idea sucks”.
I don’t have anything against plantation tree’s being used for paper for printing books.
In fact I descend from one of NZ’s early conservationists and have a deep love and respect for forests. I have askully wept upon hearing chain saws start up to remove a massive and very old stand of macrocarpa’s on the development where I live. They destroyed the habitats of a variety of ground nesting birds and assorted critters over the three days it took to destroy those lovely lungs. An ugly scar was left on the landscape. The full moon doesn’t appear in her Gothic glory on a rocky bit of clay, as she had previously done, gliding up slowly and majestically above the tree’s.
As for your site, I have visited it when you have linked it, for music. I’m not your target audience for your cannabis n vegan info though. But we’ve been through all that, in the past.
it is a generalist news site..rosie..
(focusing on high-quality content/commentary..sourced from what i deem to be the best publications around the world..basically the best of the best..each/every day..)
..the vegan/pot stories wd be 1-2% of the content..
..and i presume you regularly moan that there are no good left/progressive daily news sources in nz..
..eh..?
..part of the general deploring..isn’t it..?
You presumed wrong phillip.
I can’t recall a time where I’ve ever “moaned” about the lack of left/progressive daily news sources in NZ.
I only have an expectation that news should be factual, unbiased and uninfluenced by advertising dollars, which it is of course, not.
Which brings me back the idea of crowd funding the publication of BLiP’s Chronicles. It would be, in part as I’ve already said, a challenge to the media, highlighting their inability and unwillingness to bring the full picture to the public. Which sounds like one of the motivations for you, for the work you do on your site.
No point “moaning”, when you can at least try, to do something about it eh? As you have done?
“..I can’t recall a time where I’ve ever “moaned” about the lack of left/progressive daily news sources in NZ…”
so…where do u get yr news from..
..that is ‘left/progressive’ here in nz..?
..i’ll link to them..
Well, by saying I don’t moan, It doesn’t mean I said the opposite either, which would be “we have an abundance of progressive news services here in Aotearoa”. That’s simply not true.
Before I became unwell I would use Democracy Now as well as receive email news from labour rights groups such as Labourstart and International Labour Rights Forum (I have an interest in this area and wanted to keep up with overseas labour rights news).
I don’t have the energy to keep up with that at the moment so start my day with RNZ news, then switch to Radio Active, especially on a Thursday if I’m up in time for the Scoop report, have a squizz at the scoop site most mornings, then have a squizz on The Standard.
In the evening for junk food news lols it’s TV3 at 6pm, followed by Al Jazeera. (not lols)
I haven’t read the Herald since 2006 and only look at stuffed.co.nz a couple of times a week, where I remind myself why I don’t visit that site.
in the sense of holding the bastards to account..
..each/every day..
..and/or as a stop-gap measure ’till yr ideal appears..
..can i suggest http://whoar.co.nz/ ?
..and as an example of that in action..i wd point you at the cache on the business-dealings of michael jones (in the comment above..)
..where else wd u find that..?..
… sure you can, 😉 …
A collaborative site such wikia or hackpad would be effective and easy for several contributors to edit. I’m thinking the URL could be something like “crikey.hackpad.com” (or hokey, flakey, keynotes, offkey, snakey, wonkey…)
If there were enough resources, another “wall of” tracking back through legislative changes that passed by unnoticed and uncommented would be a good addition at a later date.
Particularly if comments were permitted.
Hi Molly.
Thats a great idea. The wall of ideas I especially like. Something visual you can click on discover what’s behind. As an aside,the NZ equivalent of Russell Brand’s Trews can be found every morning on the breakfast show hosted by Redbird Jnr on Radio Active 88.6 fm or listen to on line if you’re not in Wellington. As mentioned previously, they do the Scoop report with Alistair Thompson every Thursday morning too.
Agree that there needs to be an on line resource as the lies and the agenda isn’t a static thing and people have come to expect that everything is available on line. Then again, a site like The Standard is doing that anyway. Authors produce posts that critique our government’s work, and analyse media response to political events.
The idea for a book though, isn’t simply to release information. I see it as a people’s project. Something tangible, like a crowd funded book, represents a public response and in a way a public movement, a challenge to those who refuse to bring the full picture to light and as a service from members of the public to members of the public.
It’s an exercise in organisation as much as an exercise in education.
OK, Rosie.
Coming from an entirely different intent than I was thinking.
Personally, I’m more interested in getting people informed so that critical conversations can be had over the next couple of years. It’s very difficult to have a reasonable conversation with people that don’t even have the basics of knowledge about what is going on. For that reason, I prefer the idea of preaching to the unconverted, and that would be something I’d put time and effort into if it was needed.
I’ll have to check out Redbird Jnr, appreciate the info.
In the end, I’m a book hoarder from way back, and would contribute what I could to help the publishing of Blip’s list.
Yes, the core purpose of publishing the chronicles is to inform and educate.
I’m just saying there is more than one aspect to it, and yes, the audience would be those who don’t have the basics, as well as others, to my mind at least. There isn’t much point publishing a crowd funded book for a those who follow politics closely, or if there is that can be left to some one else. That WOULD be preaching to the converted.
There seems to be thousands upon thousands of NZer’s who have been turned off the concept of politics and fail to understand how critical a part they play in a democracy. These are the people that need to be reached and I agree, it’s very difficult to have a reasonable conversation with them.
The trick is engaging them. It’s working out a way to do that. I’m guessing the writing style is one way of doing that. But there’s a a lot to think about before we get to that stage and BLiP hasn’t entered the craic yet………….
Kia ora,
I have gone ahead and created a wiki site: https://offkey.hackpad.com/
BLiP’s list will go here: https://offkey.hackpad.com/The-List-kUC4LW4cyFQ
It needs a lot more work, feel free to jump in, or write your thoughts in this thread.
Aw! Thats fantastic Ropata. Love your work! Well done you. Love that AB’s image too. 😀
Those lies and” misremberings” though, so many and so many I’d forgotten about. It’s a real bollocks-a-thon.
If anyone wants to edit, drop me a line at
robertpnz AT hotmail DOT com
here’s a very rough concept:
The JK Casino Game
Do it as an interactive flash-animation site
base it on a One Armed Bandit
have various topics represented on the wheels – in icon form, or words
when the player pulls the arm, the wheels spin
a simple animation runs as the wheels spin
when it stops, the machine pays out currency
when the currency is clicked, (collected) the link is activated
the link could go to an article or an analysis of the item or a video etc
Different buttons on the dashboard could group different ‘lies’ into topics so the pay out relates to that topic
has smartphone ap potential also
just a thought.
a good ‘thought’..
I like it! Creative and fun, as well as educational.
‘
Hello hello . . .
Don’t always dwell in the Open Mike but found your comment today. Wow!! Go ahead: do whatever you wish with any of my lists. While I am happy to compile them, they are Copyleft and available to anyone who wants to make use of them.
Here’s my current, updated list of John Key’s Lies:
‘
‘
Here’s my list of the actions taken by the National Ltd™ Cult of John Key in its systematic attack on the environment of New Zealand. There’s some work to do in the latter part, its just got too depressing for me but, if anyone’s interested, I can steel myself to the task of writing each item up.
‘
. . . continued from above
‘
And here’s my list of what the police have been up to since the National Ltd™ Cult of John Key took over . . .
. . . continued from above:
Phew! Right! I have just picked myself up off the floor after going through that tsunami of despair.
You have my utmost respect for the work you have done BLiP.
What has always struck me about your lists, apart from the bare faced key lies, is the pattern of of deceit that has woven itself throughout Key’s reign. He misleads and bluffs his way through his role as leader. He has always spoken from the position of a man whose values are constantly shifting to suit his own agenda and self advancement.
He has no moral integrity.
Your Chronicles illustrate his poor morality and his absolute lack of suitability to be a leader of a democracy. He will never get above level one (pre conventional, parts one and two) on Kohlberg’s scale:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development
Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
(How can I avoid punishment?)
2. Self-interest orientation
(What’s in it for me?)
(Paying for a benefit)
Level 2 (Conventional)
3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(Social norms)
(The good boy/girl attitude)
4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(Law and order morality)
Level 3 (Post-Conventional)
5. Social contract orientation
6. Universal ethical principles
(Principled conscience)
Back to The Book. Your master list perhaps could be broken up into areas of lies and deception: Economic, Misleading the House, Opposition politicians and their supporters, Employment, Public Service, Ministerial services and Promises to the public (eg, we won’t raise GST, etc) The environment cache of lies could be a part two.
At this stage The Book is just an idea. Brand Key is holding up the government and NZer’s need to know what they voted for is nothing more than a brand. A product created by a PR company. A false leader. Exposing Key for what he really his, a lier, could be one way to wake people up. The media is like zopiclone to the public, keeping us dosy and sleepy. That’s why I thought it might be good to do some shaking and shouting…………
I have no idea what happens next or if anything will happen at all………..
16/12/08 – Palmerston North police officer Timothy Hesketh, 27, who lied during investigations and showed no remorse was found guilty of breaking a prisoner’s neck yet escapes a jail sentence.
Is he any relation of the disgraced judge Robert Hesketh?
“..The Latest Cannabis Science You Need to Know..”
(excerpt..)
..’Five new cannabis-centric studies warrant major attention..
The study is not the first time that researchers have identified an inverse association between marijuana use and the development of cancer.
In 2009 Brown University researchers similarly reported that the moderate long-term use of marijuana was associated with a reduced risk of head and neck cancers – in a multi-center cohort involving over 1,000 subjects.
In addition the largest case-controlled study ever to investigate the respiratory effects of marijuana smoking – found no positive association between inhaling pot and lung cancer risk.
‘We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer –
– and that the association would be more positive with heavier use’ pulmonologist Dr. Donald Tashkin – Professor Emeritus at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA told The Washington Post.
‘What we found instead was no association at all –
– and even a suggestion of some protective effect’.
(cont..)
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/latest-cannabis-science-need-know
(and in related news..)
“..Marijuana in Jamaica: Possession of up to two ounces decriminalised on Bob Marley’s birthday..
..Possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use has been decriminalised in Jamaica.
Bob Marley – who died aged 36 – would have been 70-years-old..”
(cont..)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/marijuana-in-jamaica-possession-of-up-to-two-ounces-decriminalised-on-bob-marleys-birthday-10034299.html
Is two ounces a ‘small amount’ Phil? Sounds like heaps to me
in times past that wd have lasted me about two days..
..then i used to roll very large spliffs..(usually laced with hash..)
..and in fact..was known for the quality of my ‘joints’/joint-rolling..and yes..!..a filter..always..!..
..standards had to be maintained..
..nowadays when/if i smoke..it is from a very small pipe…and very small amounts..
..two ounces wd keep me going for yoinks..
..and yes..it is a reasonable amount..
..it’ll do..
(i actually went to jamaica to break a crack-habit..
..and yes..i hooked up with vego-rastafari..
..and smoked shedloads of ganga to ease me thru the crack-withdrawals..)
hmmmm interesting….. did you find you needed more as time passed and your body / mind got used to it? i.e. you needed increasing amounts for the same hit? (within the context of either big fatties or small pipettos
no..not really..
..sure..a tolerance wd build..
..but that effect from smoking more depends on the quality of the pot…
..not the amount..
..’cos if the pot is crap..u can chainsmoke it and get no higher..
..it is different from booze in that way..’cos even the cheapest/nastiest alcohol will get u drunk…
..cheap/nasty pot won’t get u high..
Canterbury and Otago longtitudinal studies show otherwise.
These studies have been published in Lancet unlike your study phil!
which are published in a pro marjuana magazine.
Smoking very “high”temperature substances damages airways and lungs!
Ingested eating cannibis may be safe when not driving or working!
Get real Phil every drug has drawbacks to Deny that is making your argument weaker!
i repeat:..
..”..In addition the largest case-controlled study ever to investigate the respiratory effects of marijuana smoking – found no positive association between inhaling pot and lung cancer risk..
..and even a suggestion of some protective effect’..”
what do you find so hard to understand about a study from the med-school @ ucla..?
..where the scientists/doctors had that same expectation you cite as fact..
..”..Smoking very “high”temperature substances damages airways and lungs!..”
(exclamation-mark and all..)
..and were confounded to instead find:
‘What we found instead was no association at all..’
w.t.f. do u find so hard to understand about that..?
..and yr ‘pot-magazine’ attempt to discredit the credibility of that study..
..is just fucken farcical..
..(and no..exclamation-marks don’t necessarily make it so.. eh..?..)
and as anecdotal-evidence..i had a check-up about a year ago..
..and lung-function was tested..
..as you may think..i was keen/curious to hear the results..
..and to my surprise/delight..
..i was told i ‘have the lungs of a young man’..
..make of that what u will..
Ms England knows why these pictures haven’t been published.
– Lynndie England
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/05/line-sand-fight-release-thousands-photos-prisoner-abuse/
Echoes of what SS officers and other defendants said at the Nuremberg trials.
People willingly giving up their moral agency to do the inhumane, while “just following orders.”
That’ s why I cited Lynndie England because IMO it could well be the real reason behind the refusal to publish all of the images when the Ahbu Gahrib chain of command apparently stopped at the rank of staff sergeant.
No commanding officers were prosecuted yet subsequent reports detailed the use of stress positions, humiliation, hooding, and rectal feeding as legitimate interrogation techniques.
Love these Guys. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Great report on Swiss Leaks and very dodgy outfit HSBC
http://www.icij.org/project/swiss-leaks/banking-giant-hsbc-sheltered-murky-cash-linked-dictators-and-arms-dealers?utm_campaign=swiss_leaks&utm_source=appeal&utm_medium=button_middle&goal=0_ffd1d0160d-b4353af741-100020097&mc_cid=b4353af741&mc_eid=c346e018f7
…. and the journalists include Nicky Hager working on some interesting stories at the moment.
And some good news
Strikes and actions from around the globe.
http://libcom.org/news/s%C3%A3o-paulo-ongoing-demonstrations-against-transit-fare-hikes-09022015
http://libcom.org/blog/lsse-struggle-next-stop-drapers-09022015
“State capitalism is usually described as an economic system in which commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity is undertaken by the state, with management and organization of the means of production in a capitalist manner, including the system of capital accumulation, wage labor, and centralized management.” – Wikipedia
While the Wikipedia writer understands that state capitalism is a form of capitalism, this is not well understood on the New Zealand left. Much of this left, for instance, supports capitalism if the capitalist company is owned fully by the capitalist state. This left campaigned in favour of such ownership in the referendum on whether the government should be able to sell 49% of shares in a number of State-Owned Enterprises.
But from the standpoint of the material interests of workers, how is being exploited by a company, functioning as a fully capitalist company, owned by the state preferable to being exploited by one 49% privately-owned, or even 100% privately-owned? Workers are no better off materially. In fact, when the state itself functions as a capitalist company it is more thorough – and more powerful – as the boss.
The widespread left support for state capitalism in New Zealand also acts to disorient workers and retard the development of any meaningful class consciousness. It reinforces illusions in the nature of the state and of capitalism where the state itself acts as the personification of capital.
SOEs: corporatised business as usual: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/soes-corporatised-business-as-usual/
“Our asset” lays off 125, threatens more: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/our-asset-lays-off-125-threatens-more/
What Solid Energy and Mainzeal reveal about private and state capitalism: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/neither-private-capitalism-nor-state-capitalism-but-workers-power-what-solid-energy-and-mainzeal-reveal-2/
State companies, capitalism and the left: a Marxist view: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/state-companies-capitalism-and-the-left-a-marxist-view/
Phil
Singapore and China uses state capitalism to accomplish strategic objectives to strengthen their nation’s capabilities and potential. NZ uses state capitalism to extract more money from its citizens.
+1
I was always amused when neoliberals held up the Asian Tigers as models for the NZ economy. They were all built with not only massive state intervention in the economy but a sizeable amount of state planning.
I wrote a study of the Japanese case back in 1994: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/japan-and-the-new-world-order-1-from-postwar-take-off-to-stagnation-1945-1994/
One of the other amusing things in relation to the neolibs was all the Asian tigers, even the tiny places like Hong Kong and Singapore, built on an industrial base whereas the neolibs wiped out much of the industrial base in this country.
They thought that as long as some people were making heaps of money somewhere in the economy it was all fine!!! They didn’t have much understanding of the bubble economy and its consequences – the more inflated the artificial economy is the bigger the crash will be when it comes. Even after 1987 they kept ploughing ahead. . . to new and bigger disasters!
Phil
Yep fast boys with cellphones and no understanding or comprehension of humanity. They continuously cause so much damage …
The PM you mean?
Aye …
Yep, noticed that myself. IMO, many services which are run in a capitalist way should actually be government services supported through general taxation. There may, in some cases, need to be a use charge to limit usage. Electricity would have such a usage charge but telecommunications wouldn’t.
Great insight from Danyl M over at the Dim-Post.
“Hooton ascribes part of Key’s popularity to his preeminence as a commentator on light-entertainment shows across New Zealand media. More FM, Breakfast TV, Seven-Sharp, etc. Critically these are (a) news sources for ‘median’ or persuadable voters and (b) they’re formats in which Key can assert his version of any news story unchallenged, and then go on to tell funny stories about the All-Blacks.
So there’s a reality-based community in which, say, people read the Inspector-General of Security and Intelligence’s report and see that Key’s office was found to have abused intelligence information for political purposes, but Key can create his own reality in the minds of hundreds of thousands of voters simply by going on Breakfast TV and explaining that his office was completely exonerated while the hosts nod their heads and smile.”
So somehow Labour needs a way to get to those “median” voters. Replicating Key wont work.
Link here. https://dimpost.wordpress.com/2015/02/10/key-and-reality/
Samsung Smart TV users find out that their TV can record private conversations and pass them onto a third party.
https://twitter.com/xor/status/564356757007261696/photo/1
Every smart phone is a bug and tracking device; every laptop with a webcam in the lid is a CCTV camera.
“every laptop with a webcam in the lid is a CCTV camera.”
Only if I turn it on while I am connected to the internet.
Ditto my phone. Most of that shit is turned off unless needed.
If script kiddies can do it…..
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/miss-teen-usa-webcam-hacker-jared-james-abrahams-sentenced-to-18-months-in-prison-9200575.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/18/research-shows-how-macbook-webcams-can-spy-on-their-users-without-warning/
for a desktop..
..you can fold a business card to form a screen over the camera..
I’m sure anything can be hacked. Bit different from my laptop being a cctv in the context of samsung’s tv.
As I’ve been saying for quite some time: The people you really need to be concerned about spying upon you is the corporations, not the government. The government can be held to account, the corporations can’t (and the TPPA will make that even worse).
Nope it’s the government you need to be afraid of. That is because governmental power to imprison you, confiscate your property, run tax audits to ruin your life/business or outright execute you (eg in the case of droning US citizens) for purely political or venal reasons is beyond the interests and capabilities of standard corporations.
As for “holding the government to account” – that can be done in a functioning (or mostly functioning) democracy.
Governments can legally imprison or kill you.
Ever hear of private prisons or “military contractors”?
Corporations can sue you to bankruptcy and suicide. Or do you for copyright infringement, or trespass, or violating terms and conditions, or keep their aggregated data on a single unsecured database, or spend millions on lobby groups.
You can’t vote to change a corporation, though, because people with more money have more votes.
NZ examples?
Auckland Central Remand Prison run by SERCO
Corporate reps at TPPA negotiations
File-sharing copyright infringment act
Secret sources of mcvictim’s senseless-sentencing finances.
Hager on NZ private military contractors
Anything from the Winebox Inquiry.
Anyone stiffed by a finance company or insurance company.
$65 parking fines for 5 minutes too long outside dunedin stadium.
Wheel clampers and their “fees”
Sorry, I meant in the context of Samsung-esque surveillance.
I seem to recall that the Xbox One had similar issues (camera always on) that were nuked after the public reaction.
Not sure whether any NZ companies even make TVs.
All you’re pointing out is an amalgamation of government and corporate power.
We all know what that is called.
Tellie-tubby land?
It’s the way of the future, and shortly, they will be armed with real time mass surveillance of everybody.
eh-oh!
Yeh, but the private prisons and military contractors are under contract to *the government*. So Col Rawshark’s argument still stands.
I’d say, however, government/state rather than just government.
And you can’t really change the state or the government. You can change which party is in power but, whichever it is, it runs the same apparatus. For instance, the SIS operated just the same under Labour as National, for instance.
I don’t want the SIS to be under Andrew Little instead of John Key. I want it abolished.
Phil
yes, if you reduce his list to two items and ignore the instances when technical illegalities appear to have been unpunished when large corporations have been involved, then yes, you raise a valid point.
Nope. As I say, the government can be held to account and changed whereas the corporations can’t. Of course, it doesn’t help that the government is presently owned by the corporations.
You still talk as if replacing one group of elite oriented politicians with another group of elite oriented politicians is going to have any real effect on the TPPA, mass surveillance, banking hyper profits, unaffordable housing, etc.
They got rid of Bush in the USA and Obama has been worse, from a targeted killings, civil liberties and imprisoning whistleblowers perspective.
Yes, we have to change the system so that we don’t have elites.
FJK.
John Key said unless more money could be found, the convention centre could end up as an ”eyesore”.
Under the deal, Sky City would build and design the centre for up to $402 million.
In return, it could operate another 230 gaming machines and 40 tables.
Last year, Sky City revealed the estimated cost could reach $530 million.
Mr Key said that was because the design was bigger and ”flasher” than was originally proposed.
“Ultimately Sky City has worked off a concept through to something that looks more like a project that’s ready to go.
“I’m keen to see the best convection centre I can for Auckland because this is a very long-term asset.”
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/265717/taxpayers-may-cover-sky-city-shortfall
the snake oil salesman going about his daily toil ……….
The first part of the gentle slide to tax payers subsidising another corporate has begun
I think this can easily be described as a payment to corporates rather than a subsidy to corporates.
Taxpayers paying to build a casino…… *slowly shakes head*
What has happened to the amazing free market? Has it failed again?
When they say free they mean free for the wealthy to run things for there immediate benefit.
It’s also all about keys legacy he wants a flag and a convention centre in his name plus a knighthood ,let’s hope Little can bring him to his knees this year so he gets none of it.
This government have been subsidising corporations at the taxpayers expense since it got into power.
I know it’s banging an old drum but for the benefit of new visitors….
Folk might notice the items listed as part of the original Government deal do not mention a 300 room hotel. For some reason this late addition to the deal is an apparently insignificant detail. Doubleplusgood deal.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11385010
“At the end of last year, SkyCity said the original $402 million cost had been “revised” to $470-530 million.”
“The documents the Herald obtained show SkyCity started making changes almost immediately after it secured land from TVNZ in September 2013.
The most significant was the placement of a 300-room hotel on the TVNZ land. SkyCity had said for years the land was needed for the convention centre.”
What does it cost to build a 300 room hotel? Who can tell but $130 million might just swing it.
Yep both Key and Skycity know 100% about the sham scam that has been pulled here regarding the addition of a 300-room hotel
The deal did not include a hotel…… surely the free market could deal with justifying the build of a hotel next to the country’s biggest casino and not need taxpayers to help them out? No? What the f&*k is the matter with the free market?
I have no problem with the government coughing up $130 million for a 300 room Hotel, IF we see every cent of the investment repaid in full at standard market interest rates plus a couple of points for the effort. Oh what’s that you say SkyCity? You could get a better deal than that from a bank – then go do that you %#&*^$ bunch of reprehensible parasites.
“.. Oh what’s that you say SkyCity? You could get a better deal than that from a bank – then go do that you %#&*^$ bunch of reprehensible parasites…”
+ 1..
i approached it with a degree of trepidation/doing-duty..
..but little is giving a ripper of a speech..
no metiria turei there..?..
..why is norman giving the greens’ speech..?
..when he is bailing-out..
..shouldn’t turei be giving it..?
..and again..where is she..?
normans’ delivery is insipid/stilted…underwhelming..
re little..
..favourite aside was to tolley and ‘woody’ woodhouse..referring to the resignation of sabin..
.and the when did they know?-question..
..’the truth will set you free’..
..and that he ‘would come back to that’…
heh..!..
..peters is using his speech to taunt the national party backbenchers..
..over their impending leadership spill..
he tells them their upcoming embarrassment at the hypocricies etc will be acute..
..and he confirmed he will be standing in the northland bye-election..
did Winston confirm he will stand ? I didn’t get that .. I got his repeated promise ‘help is on its way’, but no absolute confirmation which I was hoping for ? did I miss it ? thx
I thought he was marvelous today .. healthy and thriving.
Link is up now .. here we go:
he said ‘help is on the way’..
..and that:..’the campaign will start soon’..
..(key shouldn’t have taunted him..i thought that was a big mistake when key said it..)
..and it makes perfect political sense for him to stand..to build his/nz first profile..
..and it sets up an interesting dynamic..
..peters cd split the vote and labour cd walk thru..
..and peters wouldn’t mind if that happened..
..anything to bloody national…
and peters was on form..
..much better than he was for most of last yr..(going on his questiontime-appearances..)
..he was particularly adept at demolishing heckling national party backbenchers..
..naming them..and then riffing on them..
wow. Speaker David Carter has just disclosed that Sabin is the subject of the suppressed court case by shutting down all reference to an MP who resigned.
Covering Key’s backside, that’s for sure.
Sorry lprent .. don’t have a link as yet but will post asap so you are in not in any breach … spoken by David Carter interrupting and preventing Andrew Little’s speech at about 2.30 pm this afternoon.
lol
Protecting key, or simply incompetent, I wonder, if carter left no reasonable doubt that dude A was dude B.
Even more interesting – MPs have parliamentary privilege when speaking in the House, but does the Speaker have privilege when giving a ruling? 🙂
i was puzzled by carter..
..yep..!..he has gone on the record…joining the dots for the first time..
..he’s ‘blown the gaff’..as they say..
..and yet he didn’t need to..little was tip-toeing enough..
..but in his ruling..which must now be in/on the public record..
..carter made a clear statement..that cd leave nobody in any doubt..
(..and therefor able to be commented on..?..can those who know advise if comment can be made on carter joining those dots..?..)
Little was very clear to only mention that an MP was under Police investigation. He did not mention a court, or a court case or a proceeding of any other form excepting the aforementioned and publicly reported Police investigation.
When the Speaker first rose to his feet it was understandable and to be expected as a precautionary measure, though him mentioning the suppressed court case in connection to comments on an MP under Police investigation was a shock.
To rise a second time and again mention the court case, when Little was clearly moving away from that area of commentary, The Speaker only confirmed the connection existed.
indeed. here’s the link for Little’s nuggety attack on Key and Nats …
Timed.
@lprent et al : the relevant comments re court case start at 13.00 and runs to about 16.00
And Winston on the same matters is worth the viewing:
Just watched Andrew’s fiery emphatic speech and am buoyed! Thanks for the link raw.
onya, ian !
and Winston is worth a viewing also .. if you don’t have 20 mins, start at 17. 35 mins … link is just above from me at 20.2.1.2.1
onya, ian !
and Winston is worth a viewing also .. if you don’t have 20 mins, start at 17. 35 mins … link is just above from me at 20.2.1.2.1
+100 ianmac and rawshark-yeshe…I was also buoyed to hear it on the radio as i was driving
Andrew Little superb in his attack on John Key….and followed up by Russel Norman and Winston Peters
….now if this trioka/ triumvirate could get together and cooparate to help Winnie win Northland…they are a government in waiting ….close enough to roll John Key and his corrupt government sooner rather than later …..
if only they will listen …. and work together …
am I right in thinking there is no party vote in a by-election ? Well, if all those who party-voted NZ First vote for a candidate, it will be game on !!
Sure is good to watch Little when he’s in that sort of form alright, it would be even better if he eye balled the rat key while he’s ripping into him.
Its a shame that all the fools on tv3 news tonight showed of it was Littles repeated “masters of the universe” comment.
The Speaker only confirmed the connection existed.
Indeed he did. Instructions from above? Do whatever you have to, to stop Little saying anything?… then the idiot went and gave the game away himself.
I see Tolley is refusing to answer media questions relating to Mike Bush contacting her. Now Carter shutting down all questions relating to the ex MP is outrageous. Some of us still believe in transparency from Central Government.
Some of us think things may need to be amped up by excising our democratic right to protest outside National electorate offices. Some of the Northland offices during the by election is a worthy place to start. People enjoy scribing their beef on placards and banners. What they write is up to the individual 🙂
how about it wasn’t Tolley but Collins earlier ? Tolley is snookered if that’s the case !!
Some may say Collins originally leaked details about Sabin having a scrape with the law back in 2011 through her then good friend Slater.
I’ll be intrigued to what comes out before the by-election – Northland will still be national afterwards, but it might be interesting to see how much of a hit they take.
if it all comes out, I’d take a reasonable bet that Nats lose the seat. And Winston was very, very clear today he did not consider himself in the house to be bound by any court suppression ruling.
Technical legal question … if someone has pleaded guilty and the court has accepted such a plea, is it still sub-judice ? ( Tracey ?Murray ? Mickey? thx for your help as always !)
Yes, if a suppression order has been put in place by the court relating to the name (s) and/or other details.
thx vv
In the mysterious court case we have at the moment, everything has been suppressed, and continues to be under suppression until judge lifts it.
skinny .. do u hv a link for that pse re Tolley avoiding questions?
Here is Katie Bradford on Twitter
That is a strange back sided decision from Carter in the house today when he shut out Andrew Little making any reference to an MP being made the chair of the Law and Order committee while under police investigation.
YET, it is JOHN KEY himself that HAS been talking to the media about this issue announcing when and what date he was told about Sabin’s case (though he kept changing the dates) and ALSO said that he was OK with SABIN chairing that conflict of interest chairman’s post (even though it happened AFTER key/his office was already made aware through multiple sources), including Matt McCarten, of the police investigation!
How can there be one rule for Key and a different one for Little?
So, will the courts charge Key for the breach of their suppression order for his public statements?
they really are muddling up their knitting patterns and dropping stitches all over the place, aren’t they ? lie upon lie upon lie, and not a decent memory cell between them. actually, it’s potentially hysterically funny if it were not our democracy being corrosively attacked.
f.f.s..!
..mora is defending screws watching prisoners in the shower/on the toilet..
..and the panelists are braindead fucken idiots..
..some airhead woman..(who was once burgled – and seeks revenge..is positively gleeful..almost biblical in her desire for generalised-revenge on prisoners..f.f.s..!..)
(what is it with all these new dumbarse female panelists..f.f.s..!..)
..where are they finding them..?
..greg newbold came on..and is ‘disgusted’..the airhead snaps back at him..says that ‘prisoners should have no rights’..
‘she’s a valley girl..!..she’s a valley girl..!’
..she’s doing a moon zappa riff..
..’fer sure..!..fer sure..!”
and the rightwing airhead male..inglis..
..obviously talking about something he knows absolutely fucken nothing about..
..and denounces the new greek govt…for ‘wanting to take ten steps back’..
..some more of that panel ‘balance..eh..?
..they were both airheads..
(heh..!..i actually felt sorry for mora..for him it was like wading thru a thigh-deep swamp..
..he wd throw out conversation-starters..to dead-air..
..and all we cd hear was the wind whistling thru..and the tumbleweeds rolling around in..
..those matching airheads..
..it was behind-the-sofa-radio..
..excruciating..
A mention by the marvelous Tim Minchin.
“In darker days, I did a corporate gig at a conference for this big company who made and sold accounting software. In a bid, I presume, to inspire their salespeople to greater heights, they’d forked out 12 grand for an Inspirational Speaker who was this extreme sports dude who had had a couple of his limbs frozen off when he got stuck on a ledge on some mountain. It was weird. Software salespeople need to hear from someone who has had a long, successful and happy career in software sales, not from an overly-optimistic, ex-mountaineer. Some poor guy who arrived in the morning hoping to learn about better sales technique ended up going home worried about the blood flow to his extremities. It’s not inspirational – it’s confusing.
http://www.timminchin.com/2013/09/25/occasional-address/
heh..!
Car hacked on 60 Minutes
That is a serious concern and it makes you wonder just what these car firms were thinking or if they were thinking. The really interesting bit, though, is in the next paragraph:
Yeah, real time monitoring of computers connected to the network.
MH 370 anyone ?
lol
why not just head straight to 9/11?
very different .. not into conspiracies, but what they describe above is exactly what is known of the MH370 computers …. as little as it is ..
nothing is known of the MH370 computers, other than when they ceased communication.
There is certainly no telemetry from the flight, which is sort of the problem.
Could be a hacker, but could be hijack, flight crew hijack, hypoxia+autopilot, hell even a close encounter of the third kind.
Until Bob Ballard or someone find the thing, nobody will know – maybe not even then.
exactly. agree with you 100%. the story above simply demonstrates one possible explanation, and proves a possible scenario in particular circumstances, which is why I commented.
I believe it deserves some oxygen and not to be forgotten, for the sake of the families, and passengers everywhere.
Serendipity: this crash was on telly tonight.
Yet another possible scenario. Pilots didn’t notice they’d plugged the wrong coordinates into the autopilot, flew into the middle of the Amazon.
Maori TV “Rethink.”
RMA Reforms. Just watched a half hour panel discuss the intent and practice of the RMA and broadcast on Maori TV “Re-think.” This is the first time I have heard/watched any discussion on this coming issue.
Damnit! How come it is avoided on other MSM?
The changes are certainly aimed at maximising economic advantages and minimising environmental ones.
Hence the Government is politically appointing Boards of Enquiry to avoid public input and avoiding the Courts for appeal.
When the detail becomes clearer will we protest?
Host the excellent Stacey Morrison.
And why do they automatically parrot the government-friendly formulation that these savage assaults against the right of citizens to challenge powerful interests are RMA “reforms”?
Similar anodyne language—“reform”, “changes”, “restructuring”—is used whenever there is discussion of the massive cuts to public housing, hospitals, education and welfare.
Rather than speak plainly, the likes of Brent Edwards on Radio NZ National seem more than happy to use the distorting and misleading vocabulary of the government.
On Demand Rethink on RMA
http://www.maoritelevision.com/tv/shows/re-think
Je suis….