NSA tipped Key off in advance of Greenwald’s revelations about the GCSB. Andrea Vance reports:
Ferguson’s admission backs up Snowden’s evidence about XKeyscore – but Greenwald argued Key cannot confirm it because he promised to resign in the event the GCSB was found to be carrying out mass surveillance.
‘‘The reason that John Key won’t admit what Mr Ferguson himself admitted … is because XKeyscore by its nature is a system of mass surveillance,’’ he said.
Greenwald also said he believed the NSA tipped off the National-led Government about what was coming. The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer took his information to the US spy agency on Sunday.
Following this, Key admitted the GCSB had proposed a programme of mass surveillance, which he canned in March 2013.
‘‘He clearly learned about the documents that we intended to publish that show that this had gone beyond the proposal stage and was partially implemented,’’ Greenwald said.
In the digital age “taking it to” can mean contact via email, txt, phone, etc. Also, it could just have easily been “taken there” by people in other parts of the world working with Greenwald – Intercept people/editors/lawyers, etc.
I don’t know if thishas been discussed already but the Herald is reporting that
“Questions from the Herald saw a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister saying the new GCSB law passed last year had nothing to do with “Initiative 7418″, the New Zealand name for Project Speargun.”
Can someone direct me to the public statement that connects 7418 to “Project Speargun”, other than this one?
Option I: extends NCSC protection to the core. public-sector, critical national infrastructure and organisations of national significance, provides an automated investigation capability and an “effects” defence option;
11.2 Option 2 (includes Option I above), and the development of a Detailed Business case, the high-speed detection and defence capabilities to protect government and industry and potentially extends a degree of protection to allNew Zealanders to be developed in consultation with unD and the National Cyber Policy Office onCo);
12 noted that the implementation of Option 2 is preferred, .but requires significant
Scoping and consultation in order to identify…z
. 13 agreed to extend the scope of the NCSC to cover central government, critical national infrastructure operators and specified organisations of national significance;
14 agreed to proceed with Option I in paragraph 11.1 above ;
Present: in HonJohn Key Hon Bill English (Chair) HDiiJudith Collins HDn Tony Ryall Hon David Carter Hon Panla Bennett Hon Craig EOSs Hon John Banks Distribution: Cabinet Conimittee
2 Sept 2013
noted that in 2012… directsd the GCSB to develop a detailed business case for implementation of Option 2 in 2013
..rescinded thle decision referred to in patagraph I above on the development of a detailed business case for Option 2; …..
Karol
When Key says he told them to stop in March 2013, do you know what he is referring to, cos this suggests he didnt rescind option 2 until September 2013? The gscb bill was passed in August 2013.
It also means that the gcsb had been told to prepare a business case on option 2 in 2013. Key seems to be saying today that by September 2013, when they were told to stop, they had produced nothing?
When is someone in power going to impeach Key and his office for continuing to lie about his role as head of security and intelligence and his seedy record of widespread NZ intelligence harvesting & vague lack of details and TPPA agreements?
This is another classic Nixon affair, where Nixon at least defended himself by continually kept saying “I have never lied” this sad sack of a man hides behind his power of his office and the MSM does nothing.
Here was Key, in defence of the reason he hadn’t told us they were planning and partly implementing mass collection of data saying … “blah blah blah governments look at all sorts of stuff all the time and I don’t think its feasible for a govt to explain everything it is considering and looking at to the public- I mean that just doesn’t make sense I reckon” …
… useless Pugh then completely and utterly missed the obvious … “but this wasn’t just some everyday mundane matter was it Prime Minister, there was a review and implementation of new spy legislation so that information that you withheld was entirely relevant and intensely in the public interest. Wasn’t it Prime Minister.?”
useless Pugh just went “yep”
These useless interviewers actually make things worse. They allow the news to become distorted away from the truth.
Social media may become ( as it has in Scotland) the way to make the MSM irrelevant.
We would still need investigative journalists. Probably ones that are funded by government rather than employed by media companies. They’d be fully independent and would report through the internet and broadcast.
Just so long as the government doesn’t have any say about what the journalists investigate or publish and there’s no advertising involved it shouldn’t be.
And, yes, private corporations do have a say in what journalists investigate and publish as admitted by Rupert Murdock.
No one is denying private companies manipulate the news.
And having the government fund journalists is a terrible idea. There would be immense pressure to give good reporting on the government of the day. If you think otherwise you are terribly naive
I’d have to say that the reporting of Brent Edwards on (publicly funded) RNZ comes as close to objective in the MSM as anyone I’ve heard (or read).
He always lays out the logic of his analysis clearly and, if anything, is more likely to be critical of the current government, when warranted, than just about any MSM journalist from a private media outlet.
I take your point about purse strings but it’s perfectly possible to keep publicly funded institutions independent of the government of the day.
If it weren’t possible it would make you wonder why we trust publicly appointed judiciary in NZ. Perhaps there should be judges appointed by private interests to prevent government interference or pressure over their decisions?
And having the government fund journalists is a terrible idea.
No it’s not. In fact, it’s the only logical solution for journalism due to the fact that the corporations manipulate the news for their own ends.
There would be immense pressure to give good reporting on the government of the day.
Pressure that the journalists could then write about because the top down dictatorial control that we have now in the MSM and previously in NZBC just wouldn’t be there (Yes, I’m quite aware of how our broadcasting used to be manipulated by the government). I’m sure that real time reporting of such manipulation would result in the said government collapsing.
If you think otherwise you are terribly naive
Nope.
Oh, and I’m pretty sure that I’ve have seen people say that the private corporations don’t manipulate the news. Usually Actoid types exclaiming that privatisation and competition fixes everything.
But although I see your point, a government entity with ringfenced funding and statutory independence will always be less biased than an entity funded by corporate dollars and.or advertising revenue.
Neither will be perfect, but (even with hosking) tvnz is still miles better than fox news.
If we’ve set up the funding right the same as if a Labour or Greens or Mana government were in place as the government wouldn’t be able to do anything to pressure the journalists without it becoming public knowledge.
All you really show here is your stupidity as you exclaim that something that obviously can be done can’t be done.
When is someone in power going to impeach Key and his office for continuing to lie about his role as head of security and intelligence and his seedy record of widespread NZ intelligence harvesting & vague lack of details and TPPA agreements?
See, this is why we need the power of recall. So that protecting our democracy isn’t left solely in the hands of those that would corrupt it.
John Key on TV1 this morning (clip heard on RadioNZ newsclip with Guyon Espinor)
In context of not disclosing work on the business case, WHILE debate raged in Parliament on the GCSB Bill.
JK: “are we really saying the new standard now is every time I consider something, and ask a department to look at something, and then ultimately rest on this, we would have a public discussion about this? (this) is really a bit silly”
Director, Product Management (Advertising), Shazam Entertainment Ltd
Menlo Park, California (San Francisco Bay Area) Online Media
The two most obvious questions would be when did Till come into the country (i.e. did he come here at the same time as Key) and why does there seem to be seamless career path from NZ National Party propagandising to the Californian Entertainment industry.
“Shazam Entertainment Limited is a media engagement company that connects people to the media through their mobile devices. The company offers Shazam, an application that connects people to the music, TV shows, and brands they love, as well as enables them to discover, explore, buy, and share; and allows them to share their discoveries on Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Pinterest, and Google+”
So Key is nothing more than a messenger/facilitator set up to parrot (coached through US Corporations) to sell NZ?
So his first goal was take over and shell out a continual spin from these sources while cushioning our economy with a constant borrowing of $300 Million weekly while he paves the way for his rich Corporates to steal and gut the country?
in similar vein, karol — who is the short-haired blonde woman, about same height, but maybe younger than Key, who is always at his side in interviews and appearances and usually leaves in same car with him?
Again, Hill Cone up to her neck in the dirt. She’s not as high profile as the awful Glucina but Hill Cone gifted Slatee a media award so arguably worse.
Side note: covenient that Slater gets a ‘prestigious’ award at the very time he’s trying to be classed as legitimate media… You’d almost think it was planned. Or even paid for. Hill Cone was the only judge of Best Blog.
Greenwald exposes the way Key tried to mislead with the release of the CORTEX documents.
What was implemented in its place was Cortex, a ‘‘bespoke’’ service offered to certain firms and government departments.
Key has said this allows the GCSB to monitor only online communications into and out those organisations, and does not involve wholesale interception of the Southern Cross cable. This is the undersea link that carries all New Zealand’s internet traffic.
[..]
‘‘There is no separate cable that carries communications only for certain parties in New Zealand.
‘‘Even if you believe the prime minister that this programme is limited – as he wants to claim it is – the only way that you could make any progress at all in guarding against cyber attacks or detecting malware is if you were monitoring vast amounts of traffic, which is a form of mass surveillance by definition.’’
[…]
Greenwald points to Key’s suggestion, at the weekend, that the ‘‘bespoke’’ system involved new technology.
However, the documents Key declassified on Monday night say that under Cortex the GCSB was not proposing to ‘‘procure or develop bespoke systems’’ and say ‘‘all of the technology has been in use for some time.’’
Greenwald knows how to ask the right questions and just doesn’t uncritically accept every word out of Key’s slippery, slurry mouth.
Later today I will quote Option 1 here in full because it begun implementation in 2012 and was not rescinded the way Option 2 was.
Option one talks about the “automated investigative capacity”
Then there is Key deciding that the documents werent so secret anyway, not when his “reputation” was at stake… which means he could have released them during the GCSB Bill debate, but didn’t…
“It also emerged yesterday the documents which Mr Key said he made public to protect his reputation threatened massive damage to New Zealand’s wellbeing if made public without permission, going by the GCSB’s own threat estimates.
The four documents were previously marked at the “Secret” level of classification. The GCSB guide to security classifications says the “compromise” of “Secret” information could “damage the security, defence or international relations of New Zealand and/or friendly governments”.
Mr Key’s office refused to explain the process for making the documents public but said the Prime Minister wasn’t concerned about danger arising from their losing “secret” classification”
“Greenwald knows how to ask the right questions and just doesn’t uncritically accept every word out of Key’s slippery, slurry mouth”.
It’s been a real treat having him here in NZ, he is breath of fresh air and oasis of rational questioning and reporting. I hope our “journalists” are paying attention to what a real journalist looks and sounds like.
On 9 November 2012 an “unauthorised and un-notified software change” to the “to the wavelength switching platform” was made on the Sydney side of the Southern cross cable. It caused a “catastrophic” internet outage. Was this when the software was implemented needed to spy on all of us?
+1 @T
This is but one of the reasons I find Ferguson’s claims, and the CEO of Southern Cross Cable just a little hollow. (I.e. the need for ‘deep sea divers’; and “I’d know about it”, etc.). I can’t remember when, but I do recall a contractor accidently ‘damaging’ the cable north of Auckland in the past. Elsewhere I commented on WDM (wavelength division multiplexing), thinking that with refinement some sort of like-technology (and with NSA’s investment in R&D etc.) a passive tap is not beyond the realms of possibility. Souther Cross also claim the cable is configured in a ‘self-healing’ configuration, so that minor interruptions (perhaps except at a couple of key points) can go unnoticed as long as customers are unaffected.
The claims by both Ferguson and the CEO by their nature mean (if they’re genuine in there being ‘NO tapping’) assume they know what goes on by ALL their staff 24/7; or that they’re also being disingenuous and complicit. Aside from all that, tapping at router level …. the fact that elsewhere in the world it’s already acknowledged …. the coincidences of various visitors to the country …. the recent claim by Peters that an NSA presence in Auckland is certain and that he knows the address …. the fact that its in both Ferguson and the CEO’s interests to make such statements (in Ferguson’s case – his legacy; in the CEO’s – for business reasons) ….
In short – hollow and deceitful – but then I guess they’re ‘protecting’ us aren’t they ??
To be fair to Ferguson, he stepped away from his job as GCSB director in 2011 and this happened in November 2012. I always suspected a bust up between him and John Key about the legality of spying on New Zealanders and Dotcom that made him step down before that happened. When that happened he was blamed but in fact it was Hugh Wolfensohn, who was the acting director, who authorized the illegal spying.
Increasingly Key’s feet have the appearance of clay. Increasingly the personal demeanour is anything but relaxed. Increasingly the emperor has no clothes. Resort to “loser” and “rather large butt” is pretty pathetic really. True, worshippers at The Temple of TheGodKey won’t be phased. Who cares ? Reflecting their own realities they’re in thrall to “selfie” in its fuller definition and it’s tribal.
Of greater importance is the evergrowing sense across the nation at large that here’s a prevaricating wide boy who can’t be trusted. Check out the journalist’s robust “Why not ?” in the clip below. The manufactured gloss is tarnishing daily. ‘Challenege’ is in the air. That’s what matters electorally.
If Saturday doesn’t see sufficient ‘YawnKey’ to scotch the specious royal honorific for strutting in Hawaii…….imagine the howls of derision when that does occur. Poor Madge. Expect she’s not gonna see it as a decent quid pro quo for Scotland……
What is it you are all so desperately trying to hide that you are prepared to sacrifice NZ’s security for? The current biggest security threat to NZ is already in Australia and maybe here, but you all want to ignore that & knobble our security service?
The Left will be the first to cry “why didn’t the government do something to protect us” if we are subject to an act of terror in NZ.
Sorry to burst your fearmonger bubble: the people who’ve been telling you it’s all about terrorism, in private, among themselves, they discuss economic espionage and intellectual property.
They don’t give a toss if you get beheaded so long as they get paid.
We have already been subjected to a real act of terror (as opposed to just the government trying to terrify us) in New Zealand which the GCSB did nothing to protect us from.
What makes NZ more likely to be a location for an act of terror?
– Primarily acting as a stooge for the US which has committed long and sustained acts of terror against sovereign states for immoral and illegitimate reasons,
– spying on other sovereign states that we are not in conflict with and using our location and access to allow others to do so;
– sending our defence forces in at the request of the US despite there being no credible intelligence that indicates this approach will improve the living conditions of those countrymen or women. In fact, historical evidence shows that it usually results with deterioration of living conditions and increases the likelihood of extremist groups taking power;
– using intelligence systems to spy on and target those who disagree with the government of the time, and use intimidation techniques to get them to change behaviours – even if they are legitimate and peaceful. When you remove the right to disagree by legitimate and peaceful means, you increase the likelihood that desperation will result in ramping up actions.
In essence, failing to act like a sovereign state that upholds values such as human rights for all, and avoidance of unnecessary or ineffective conflict – is what is going to make us vulnerable to acts of terrorism.
Mike, why are you promoting thugs and criminals to the role of terrorist? As they are thugs and criminals should not good old fashioned police work sort out the problem, where is the money for that solution? But no, lets go for fear, mixed with just a little xenophobia, and the desire to keep an addiction to snooping into people’s lives so we can spy. Life is not a James Bond novel – the cold war is over, criminals will say any old shit to make themselves look good. FFS grow up – this is about your rights and your freedoms – I thought the right wing supported those ideas.
1. If we remain neutral and ethical we won’t be subject to acts of terror
2. John Key’s and National’s kowtowing to what the US wants is increasing the chance of being subjected to acts of terror and other acts of retaliation from other states
3. Mass surveillance doesn’t actually increase the chances that the police will intercept terrorists. It does mean that the government can pick up on people who disagree with them though which I’m sure you’re more than happy with (while the government is National).
Phillip, he also said he knows the address because he used to ‘oversee them as Deputy Prime Minister’, what is he doing overseeing the NSA? He is old and confused.
Lurgee,
Funny your lack-shitless bullshit leader Lie-key has changed his position on the spooking-base/ surveillance issue daily.
Key even forgot to tell us Kiwis he attends the shadow ops global Nazi founded Bilderberg group with a one world Government agenda controlled by them also?
I had no idea the right wing concept of a one world government with Bilderberg associated would be so popular with someone commenting on a Labour (so kind of left) blog in New Zealand. Am I missing something?
[lprent: Yes, you are about to start missing writing on our site after maligning it.
Banned 8 weeks for stupidity. Read the about and the policy. I really can’t be bothered indulging lazy fools who don’t read the house rules. ]
It seems that you may be in error about rich maligning the site, when all he called it was; “a Labour (so kind of left) blog in New Zealand”.
Note that he did not say a “Labour Party blog”, and the about you referred him to states; “it’d be fair to say that all of us share a commitment to the values and principles that underpin the broad labour movement” (under; “What’s your political ‘angle’?”, with similar elsewhere). Plus the site does proclaim itself; “The New Zealand voice of the labour movement”, in the hometab.
When I saw this earlier, I thought that the maligning must have occurred in a different comment, but have not been able to see anything objectionable thus far.
[lprent: Do I care? It isn’t a “Labour” blog. It has always been a “labour movement” blog which is and always has been a hell of a lot larger than a single political party.
If someone is too stupid to read the about then I will educate them the hard way. That is because invariably people that open their mouths on a blog and presume to know what it is are arrogant fuckwits who really need to understand the consequences of not investigating the social media that they are using. It is really bad manners.
My experience has been that the only reason that people say variations on that theme is because they then proceed either smear the Labour party with our sins or try to smear us. Either way I’ll give them bans of anything from a few days to a year or two the first time I see it – depends on how cranky I feel. They tend to get a bit more cautious at the next site. For some reason this semi-arbitrary sentencing behaviour never seems to constrain the growth of people commenting or the numbers of comments that they leave. I suspect that it enhances it.
I view it as a requirement to running a blog – educating the pig-ignorant ]
@ Pasupial
It seems to me to be about the meaning that relates to a word having either a capital or a lower case start. The difference between Labour (which can be used as a single word referring to the Labour Party) which these days is full of nice middle class people on good incomes, with a few lower-income asperashunal ones sprinkled on the top like tasty, poppy seeds,
and, labour which stands for the generalised working class often unskilled, low skilled, semi-skilled and with wages that generally match. So big difference between Labour and labour. Capisce?
I would have thought that a thoughtful person like yourself would have picked that up. Rich was just suffering from being a new-ish guy on the site, and put his foot in it. There is quite a lot of deliberate misinformation about the site and sometimes one more is the last straw with our sysop.
Now that it’s pointed out, I can see the difference between the two. Though it didn’t strike me on first reading, and since I just C&Pd the offending portion I missed it when I made my comment as well.
I guess rich was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with that one. Maybe the attempted deflections from the Dirty Politics crew (with their; TS is just the same as WO, nonsense) have put our fine sysop a bit on edge.
Have you got a postage stamp? If so key should be able to list all of Nationals policies on it for you.
Have to agree in large with you. The one major down fall of everything that is happening is that Policy gets drowned out. As much as I think the Dirty Polotics, GCSB information is important and should rightfully influence voters, in the end people need to know policy to make an informed decision as to who to vote for.
Actually the first part was to point out National’s policy is almost non existant. I thought that was pretty clear.
Unfortunately because of all the coverage of the admitidly important revelations I mentioned there has been very little coverage of the poilicies from other parties. As someone who voted IMP yesterday I would have liked a little more information around the differences between them and say the Greens. If the wider public are shifting away from the NAT’s and their corrupt practices it allows them to make a more informed decision about which party they want to vote for. We can’t just assume they would all vote Labour.
The honesty of the NAT’s only discredits them. It doesn’t help you decide which of the other parties you will vote for. Policy does.
So worrying about the nat’s policies being the size of a postage stamp is pretty irrelevant, if they’ve already been shown up as dishonest.
Which is more important: covering the blatant lying of our pm, or covering the policy manifestos of half a dozen other parties? I reckon that those who are interested in policy would find it themselves, e.g. party websites, but those who are more interested in character issues and baby-kissing photos will rely 100% on the msm.
Why does it have to be one or the other. My point the whole time is that they are both important. I could equally argue that those who care about Dirty Politics could go and read the book.
Not sure how you can dismiss the importance of defining the difference between parties especially on the left where we have a plethora of choice. With out clear communication of those poicies through an easily accessable medium those moving away from the NAT’s are just as likely to tick the Conservative box as say Winston Peter’s and not understand that not only will that lead to a whole lot fo crazy but it will also help return the NAT’s to power.
It’s all well and good for those who can be bothered taking the time to go and read up on different polocies. However for the large number of people who form their opinioin’s from the MSM (and they are the ones we want to influence with the coverage of Dirty Politics) they will also make their choice on change based on what they hear in the MSM.
it’s not “one or the other”, the issue is relative importance.
I don’t kjnow I care about the contents of a book if I haven’t read the book – it could be bunk for all I know, or misleading title/cover.
If I care about preschool access or water quality, I know to try to find policy on it.
And frankly, people who care more about character are likely to switch off the msm if it ignores character for policy descriptions.
It’s about trust and ethics, which are at the core of the contract between the electorate and the elected. If we cannot trust our representatives, then it doesn’t matter what the hell their policies are.
Perhaps you could take this up with the MSM. One day in the last three weeks the front page lead of a major daily, story covering the full page was ” a story and a picture (which I didn’t want to look at as being too gruesome) of somebody who had had their face bitten by a dog” which I am sure was horrible and painful. But this story and others like it occupied the front page quite consisitently over the whole period. NAct had no policy that they could discuss perhaps?
Here are some questions for Clare Curran (Labour IT spokes person at the time) who seemed to know that unauthorized changes made to the software handling the Sydney side of the Southern Cross cable crashed the internet connection for NZ on 9 October 2012.
If you want to do it yourself you might want to copy past this in your twitter message box en tweet it to them:
@clarecurranmp @DavidCunliffeMP @nzlabour What did Clare Curran know about the SC Cable outage on 9 Nov 2012 http://wp.me/p638n-4tX
Question for Lynn: How likely is it that unauthorized software changes can be made without notification by an unauthorized individual in what is the only connection of NZ to the rest of the world?
I thought it weird that that article on the outage quoted Curran so much when she was in opposition. I don’t think there was any comment from the govt.
Ah the house of cards is crumbling. I think the meme is now gently shifting to “it’s only surveillance if you look at the information – not if you just collect it’.
With more to come from Greenwald and even Craig talking about issues of trust Slippery is possibly having his last slither.
Whatever the outcome on Saturday Key is now, and will increasingly become, severely damaged goods.
Honeymoon long over. He will be a lame duck shitting bricks everyday for fear something else will come out. And he knows he is in Government on borrowed time! Can’t be nice. Looks like Winston Peters is a real alternative for those who hate labor and green but want to breakaway from National’s poisoned well and who don’t want to kowtow to the International Corps by signing the TTPA.
Local Kiwi – Thanks I do know the policies. I am committed t o Cunliffe and Labour and have ticked Labour twice..no question.
I want to HEAR the politicians and their policies not for me but because the wavering voters are the ones who need to hear them….free doctors visits for over 65s and kids…raising the Minimum wage…preventing the sale of further assets… shutting John Banks’ s ridiculous charter schools…re-establishing a public TV channel..etc etc.
Most people know the Key corporation is deceitful but the positive Labour and Greens..(grudgingly he said) policies and Winston’s ideas are getting submersed in the high profile scandals about John Key.
Incidentally, nice to hear that 10% of voters (300,000 or so have already voted- Big turnout augurs well for the left.
I would like to hear the unequivocal positions of all parties as to their definition of mass surveillance.
Do they define mass surveillance as (a) capturing and storing data without the permission of the private citizen?, or (b) do they not consider that to be surveillance until they look at that information?
It is clear that the Sleazy Dirty Politics Party is hoping to redefine mass surveillance as in (b) above.
Brian, for what it’s worth, David Cunliffe spoke at a public talk about the TICS Bill last year in August on your point:
“Labour will repeal and replace the GCSB law after an independent inquiry in to New Zealand’s intelligence services”.
He spoke at length and spoke with conviction about NZer’s right to privacy. He was sincerely and strongly opposed to the government mass spying on its citizens. Its hard to imagine however that a Labour govt will throw out intelligence sharing relationships NZ has had with allies post WW2 but we can only hope the way in which they operate will be part of the review.
As for your last question at 14. Didn’t Dotcom say the Internet Party would take one eye out of the five eyes alliance? (or did I imagine that?)
It is unlikely that New Zealand can influence the four big eyes in the Axis to dump their desires to continue with mass surveillance.
So the question will be for all New Zealanders whether we want to continue with intelligence sharing relationships we have had with allies since WW2, if the price of that intelligence is that we have to accept mass surveillance.
You say it is hard to imagine that Labour will want to stop the relationship. Which I agree with, since I have heard Cunliffe say (sorry cannot recall source) that Labour would stay with Five eyes.
It looks like an important point of differentiation between Labour and their possible coalition partners. From your comment above, I am pleased that the Internet Party may be willing to remove an eye, and say so now. The Green Party have also been very concerned about surveillance issues, although I do not know what they are thinking about continuing with 5 eyes.
It’s an issue that I wish to resolve before I vote. What I desire is a party that can provide a clear assurance that mass surveillance will not be tolerated, and that NZ will not participate in any alliance if the price for that alliance is Orwellian.
Maori Television is now feeling the effect of publishing stories that do not suit the spin of the Sleazy Dirty Politics Party.
John Key already will front up to National Radio (presumably fearing Guyon Espiner) as little as possible?
In this climate, how safe is National Radio from being “restructured” so that Guyon Espiner will no longer have a job (sending a message to all others), if the Sleazy Dirty Politics Party gets another term in Parliament?
Compelling summary by lawyer Denis Tegg with graphics on the issues of mass surveillance…questions to be asked now… and time for John key to come clean:
‘GUEST BLOG – Denis Tegg – The NSA slides that prove mass surveillance’
By The Daily Blog / September 17, 2014
“The evidence presented by Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden on The Intercept of mass surveillance of New Zealanders by the GCSB is undeniable, and can stand on its own….
News today. WINZ is closing regional offices, such as the one in Raglan
The Heartless Sleazy Dirty Politics Party (HSDPP) now expects those without work to have to pay to travel to Hamilton to a WINZ office.
If they cannot afford the travel, presumably they will lose the benefit they are entitled to; and the HSDPP will be able to trumpet that the number of people receiving the benefit is less under their watch. Do they care about poverty? The HSDPP must have been the only group in New Zealand who smiled and saw an “opportunity” from the Ashburton tragedy.
Oh Goodie! Expect more crime, more despair, more alcohol and violence. Poor Rags. I live near it. They just want people to move out of small places into the big cities. This is just pure Agenda 21 shit.
In Kawhia you don’t even get the dole if you live there because they say you clearly are not interested in a job if you want to live there. Never mind the family breakups, more lack of family support.
You poor? You rot in a burp in old leaky cold houses if you’re lucky without any hope for the future or a family life.
“In Kawhia you don’t even get the dole if you live there because they say you clearly are not interested in a job if you want to live there. Never mind the family breakups, more lack of family support. “
Kawhia is a beautiful place… wonder how much of that restriction is based on “why should the unemployed live in such an area of natural beauty when I have to work in the urban jungle?”
Sustainable regional development is required – imagine how local economies can be supported by those on benefits spending their money there instead of on high rentals in forced moves to cities.
A ridiculous policy in terms of long-term benefits to people and communities.
An unemployed person has to live somewhere while they are looking for a job. If whanau are in Kawhia, that would seem a good place to stay temporarily. I’m reading from your comment, that the same thing will happen for those who live in Raglan.
New policy. “If you are unemployed and wish a benefit, you will be required to live within walking distance of any WINZ office that has not yet closed”
I wish more emphasis was placed on the carrot and not the stick
And how much further the benefit would go in terms of providing the basics of life, and the opportunity to make changes if you are not required to live in an overpriced, unhealthy rental in a city where you don’t have a support system?
My apology: Where I wrote “New Policy ….If you are….” I did not make it clear that this was not a serious comment. I should have. The quotation marks invited your reasonable query.
Oh, FFS*, Agenda 21 is a voluntary code for societies and nations to follow to become sustainable. It includes combating poverty. As such I think we can assume that what National is doing is completely against Agenda 21 as they’re increasing poverty.
National probably see small communities as a cost on everyone else and thus they seek to get rid of them to further lower taxes. This is completely delusional but that does seem to describe National accurately.
* I get really fucked off with this conspiracy theory BS that’s been spread by, as far as I can make out, the Koch Brothers. Being sustainable does mean not using oil any more and the Koch Brothers do produce a lot of oil.
There’s a whole load more to A21 than simply sustainability DtB 🙂 Sustainability is the Trojan Horse to make it palatable.. (And I think all of us would agree with the virtue of sustainability).
That is probably because I haven’t referred to Agenda 21 as a “conspiracy theory”. It’s very real and relates to significantly more than simply “sustainability”. IMO a good video on the topic is here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GykzQWlXJs and it’s also worth reading Gro Harlem Brundtland’s book “Our Common Future” which was the precursor to Agenda 21. Your mileage may of course vary.
Disclaimer – I fully support the notion of “sustainable” development and living within our environmental means and that resources are finite. I don’t support A21 as the embodiment of this however 🙂
I do too. If anyone reads the actual Agenda 21 documents, they’re pretty innocuous. For those who rely on Alex Jones, it’s the scariest thing since chemtrails.
“If they cannot afford the travel, presumably they will lose the benefit they are entitled to;”
Pretty sure WINZ has an obligation to ensure access. So if someone can’t travel, then WINZ need to make their service accessible in another way eg by email/ph, or by sending a staffer to the area. Of course WINZ staffers will tell beneficiaries that the bene has to travel, but this should be challengeable.
National in trouble, time to call in Super Paula with a distraction, only don’t think it will work this time. What with the election so close and all that.
No,no,no. It’s alright. Franny has said that ‘john key wins’ and has kept his integrity intact. So it’s on to the final debate (which key will triumph in of course) and business as usual. I was never aware that he has any integrity.
Notice how Hudson talks about places while Virginia talks about people.
Things V People. Go Virginia and perhaps offer that jaded looking Pete a cup of coffee or something.
Yes, there is a big difference between Brett Hudson and Ginny Andersen. Notice how Hudson mainly puts up Natz terrible empty policy (eg slave labour in prisons) and talks very little about the electorate on his fb and you’re right Ginny Andersen is very people focused, and in a genuine way.
He has referred several times to his the positive feedback he is getting about the Nat govt, when door knocking but that is all. I’m sure he is only focusing on the safe wealthier looking suburbs lol. Not a peep about the poverty in the community which Ginny has covered well.
What he hasn’t said is how he has been literally laughed out loud at, at several candidates meetings (he didn’t go down well at the one I went to) and that he’s out early every morning checking damage to his hoardings.
URGENT : Request for an Inquiry by the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, Cheryl Gwyn – re matters arising from the Snowden GCSB/ NSA ‘revelations’.
Dear Inspector-General,
Yesterday, I emailed the following URGENT ‘Open Letter/ OIA request to NZ Prime Minister John Key regarding questions arising from the Edward Snowden GCSB/ NSA ‘revelations’:
I have yet to even have an emailed acknowledgment of receipt of this urgent correspondence.
In order for the public to have confidence in both the NZ Prime Minister, and the NZ Intelligence and Security services, in my opinion, we need to know that we have not been lied to regarding the mass surveillance of New Zealand citizens.
Please conduct an urgent inquiry into the following questions that I have asked of the Prime Minister, as you are empowered to do under s.11 (1) (b) (i) of the ‘Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1996:
(1)Subject to the provisions of this Act, the functions of the Inspector-General shall be—
(a)to inquire, of the Inspector-General’s own motion or at the request of the Minister, into any matter that relates to the compliance by an intelligence and security agency with the law of New Zealand:
(b)to inquire into any complaint by—
(i)a New Zealand person; or
(ii)a person who is an employee or former employee of an intelligence and security agency,—
that that person has or may have been adversely affected by any act, omission, practice, policy, or procedure of an intelligence and security agency:
(ba)to inquire into any complaint made by the Speaker of the House of Representatives on behalf of 1 or more members of Parliament:
(c)to inquire at the request of the Minister or the Prime Minister or of the Inspector-General’s own motion into any matter where it appears that a New Zealand person has been or may be adversely affected by any act, omission, practice, policy, or procedure of an intelligence and security agency:
(ca)to inquire at the request of the Minister or the Prime Minister or of the Inspector-General’s own motion into the propriety of particular activities of an intelligence and security agency:
(d)without limiting paragraph (a), to review at intervals of not more than 12 months—
(i)the effectiveness and appropriateness of the procedures adopted by each intelligence and security agency to ensure compliance with its governing legislation in relation to the issue and execution of warrants and authorisations; and
(ii)the effectiveness and appropriateness of compliance systems concerning operational activity, including all supporting policies and practices of an intelligence and security agency relating to—
(A)administration; and
(B)information management; and
(C)risk management; and
(D)legal compliance generally:
(da)to conduct unscheduled audits of the procedures and compliance systems described in paragraph (d):
(e)to prepare and submit to the Minister from time to time for his or her approval programmes for the general oversight and review of each intelligence and security agency and for the discharge by the Inspector-General, in relation to each intelligence and security agency, of the particular functions specified in this section:
(f)to carry out any programme or amended programme or substituted programme approved by the Minister under paragraph (e).
(2)[Repealed]
(3)In carrying out any inquiry in accordance with the provisions of subsection (1)(ca), it shall not be a function of the Inspector-General to inquire into any action taken by the Minister.
(4)Except to the extent strictly necessary for the performance of his or her functions under subsection (1), the Inspector-General shall not inquire into any matter that is operationally sensitive, including any matter that relates to intelligence collection and production methods or sources of information.
(5)The Inspector-General shall not conduct an inquiry into a complaint made under subsection (1) by an employee or former employee of an intelligence and security agency unless—
(a)all established internal remedies have been exhausted; or
(b)the employee or former employee and the chief executive of the relevant intelligence and security agency otherwise agree in writing.
(6)Where an inquiry has been conducted by the Inspector-General following a complaint, the Inspector-General may make such recommendations for the redress of that complaint as the Inspector-General thinks fit (including remedies that involve the payment of compensation).
__________________________________________
16 September 2014
‘Open Letter/ OIA request to NZ Prime Minister John Key regarding questions arising from the Edward Snowden GCSB/ NSA ‘revelations’
Dear Prime Minister,
Under the ‘urgency’ and ‘public interest’ provisions of the NZ Official Information Act, please provide answers to the following by 5pm Thursday 18 September 2014:
Please provide the following information that explains:
1) Why did you inform the public that the GCSB Amendment Bill would not lead to an expansion of powers when at the same time you were planning the Speargun mass surveillance initiative?
2) Why was phase one of the Speargun project completed if it was, as you have claimed, something that never made it past the “business case”?
3) Why New Zealanders were not informed about the Cortex project until the NZ Government’s hand was forced by disclosures based on documents from Snowden?
4) How much data is collected on a daily basis by GCSB under the Cortex project, and how does the agency ensure this data does not “incidentally” include the content or metadata of citizens’ communications?
5) What technology is this, referred to in the Cortex documents, that “has been around for some time”?
6) Is any information collected by GCSB under Cortex — or any other program that accesses internet data — shared with the NSA and/or other Five Eyes agencies through systems such as XKEYSCORE?
7) Does GCSB have access to XKEYSCORE and, if so, for how long has this been the case?
8) Does GCSB use its access to internet data streams — under initiatives like Cortex or similar — to launch active/offensive cyber operations that involve hacking computer systems to collect information?
9) When will you declassify documents detailing the Speargun project and showing that it was not completed?
I think his declassifying secret documents to save his own skin is what will ultimately finish him. Those documents were either 1) made secret to hide what Key was doing from New Zealand or 2) made secret for the safety of New Zealand, and so to release them to save his own political reputation is treasonous. Either way, he cannot stay as Prime MInister. Everyone has been looking for the smoking gun that will finally incriminate Key, but I think that decision he took to release those documents was him pulling the trigger on his own political demise.
Yes DTB, it has always been clear that Key is a liar out to line his own pockets. The National voters seem to understand and respect that for some reason only known to themselves. But Key has now stepped over the line into behavior that is treasonous, and that is a very different story.
Why have the Main Stream Media not published the last information given to them by Whaledump?
Why is their inaction being forgotten?
Why did Whaledump not dump his final dump to the public in the same way that previous information was dumped?
Why has Whaledump not been resurrected to rectify the disappointing response of the Media?
This election campaign has exposed the sorry state of New Zealand journalism. We once could expect our journalists to provide accurate reporting of events, regardless of their own political views. (We still can for a few journalists)
We now have far too many ‘Media Stars’ who appear to believe that they are more important than their stories. I do not want media stars giving patsy questions to the politicians they favour. I want information. And credibility (for both ‘Media Star’ and politician) that can only come from searching and thoughtful questions. And I certainly do not want, what appears to be Whaledump censorship.
A MUST LISTEN with great relevance to foreign companies buying up New Zealand land eg Goldman Sachs
In her new book, Expulsions, Columbia University sociology professor Saskia Sassen offers a chilling analysis of the dynamics shaping the global economy, including their effects of income inequality, expanding populations of the displaced, and accelerating destruction of land and water bodies.
Dr Sassen has led several multi-year projects into the forces of globalisation, and says technological and economic advances of our time have seen a sharp growth in the number of people expelled from the core social and economic orders.
Today’s Nine till Noon interview on ‘minority government’ certainly covered a lot of ground but yet again the content of the interview raised obvious questions that never get addressed.
eg: If [National] try to form a minority Government without fixed partners and/or C&S agreements and they ask the Governor General to allow a confidence vote in the House, should MP’s/Parties have a right to abstain on that vote?
To continue the Judge/Jury analogy that was being framed – where the GG is the Judge and the newly elected MPs are the Jury – ask yourself, are Jurors allowed to abstain from making a verdict decision? No! So why should Members of our Parliament be allowed to abstain when deciding who will govern?
Russell Brown’s interview with Glenn Greenwald today in Public Address is worth reading. Looks like it was GG’s request that KDC not talk about his email, as it would distract from the spying issues.
I think Mr Greenwald underestimated how much our media had fallen. How our media love the story to be about themselves. And how much our media are partisan hacks. With a few, too few, exceptions.
A final question: you dissociated yourself from Kim Dotcom’s Warner email at the press conference last night. Did you go so far as to veto it being presented on the night?
No, I wouldn’t say I vetoed it. I didn’t really have the power to veto what he wanted to do or say. But we did talk about the fact that in the scheme of what we might talk about, that the time would probably be used a lot more constructively to focus on the questions of mass surveillance and the truthfulness of the Prime Minister, and the trade agreement that Mr Amsterdam spent quite some time talking about, as opposed to the particulars of Mr Dotcom’s case. That it would probably be a better use of the time of the event. I think we came to a consensus about it and I felt very comfortable with that.
Apparently interviewing KDC, too. This sort of programme, bound to have been in the pipeline for a while, shows why it was good sense to separate the Greenwald-Snowden MoT from KDC’s issues.
I’m no fan of the guy: don’t expect him to come across as Mr Nice Guy.
I’m not expecting much from this evening’s debate. 30 minutes (22 after ads), with around 5 minutes being opening and closing remarks. Another few minutes being Hosking blathering on. It will be full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
It’s supposed to be about coalition partners and forming the government, so Hosking is likely to ask Key about his plans to cause a constitutional crises by trying to form a government without a majority in Parliament.
Things aren’t looking too good for the worlds second largest ice sheet.
This year, Greenland’s ice sheet was the darkest Box (or anyone else) has ever measured. Box gives the stunning stats: “In 2014 the ice sheet is precisely 5.6 percent darker, producing an additional absorption of energy equivalent with roughly twice the US annual electricity consumption.”
Perhaps coincidentally, 2014 will also be the year with the highest number of forest fires ever measured in Arctic.
[…]
Earlier this year, Box made headlines for a strongly worded statement along these lines:
Jason Box @climate_ice
If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we’re f’d.
I have become so disillusioned and cynical by the mans lies, that after reading that headline, my next thought is that if he’s conceding to that one there must be something even worse being hidden from us now 🙁
So now we know why Paula Bennett was dishing out all the hugs and sickly sweet comments in Ashburton a few days ago…. she was just softening up staff for her next jackboot onslaught.
Typically cynical of a woman with the ethics of an alley cat.
Marcus Lush compares and contrasts Labour vs National campaign meeting in Mangere and Mt Albert.
Both Labour and National leaders were in Auckland over the weekend: On Saturday, Marcus Lush took a trip to Mangere to see David Cunliffe appear before party supporters and media, while on Sunday, John Key appeared at a daycare centre in Mount Albert.
You are welcome. The National’s ‘clinical’ approach made me laugh! Those poor little kids were brought to school on a Sunday morning, (Yes, Sunday!) like for a quiet respectful funeral service conducted by their holiness, King Key and patron saint of kids, Paula Bennett! What a disgrace!
Armstrong – what is this increasingly shrill wishful thinking from New Zealand’s premier GodKey shill ? Sure ain’t journalism. This from the “time to resign – 11 year old form letter” man:
Amongst all the sleaze and covers up from National I wonder if anyone who knows how too has checked on the Conservatives election expensives .The huge post office delivery expense must be very big.The Cons seem to be spending money nonstop. Their election bill needs to be explained.
xox
With all this spying ( information hoovering) capacity, surely the head spy knows the game is over, and his master’s will tell him so. The high priest has been defrocked.
Again, still too close to call. National-led Government: National Party, Maori Party, ACT NZ, United Future on 49% (up from 46.5% in August 31 poll)
Opposition Parties: Labour Party, Green Party, Internet-Mana Party alliance, NZ First; down to 46.5 (from 49% in August 31 poll)
Nothing more than an old switcherooni.
National is up 1.5
Labour down 2
Greens down 2.5
NZ1st up 2
Maori Party up 1
No real change for everyone else.
Even so, based on those numbers, assuming Dunne is gone from Ohariu, and even with Seymour in Epsom, it still leaves National short. Have assumed conservatives get 4.5% and are out of parliament. The percentage signs relate to the party vote gained on the day.
I am worried that Labour will get less overall, particularly as the weather on the day is shaping up to be nasty.
I have modified the results as RM is usually out by a little bit (not much) so figures are my predictions on what the votes are likely to be on the date.
ACT New Zealand 1.50% 2 MPs (1 electorate + 1.5% PV)
Green Party 16.00% 21 MPs (no electorates)
Internet MANA 2.00% 3 MPs (1 electorate +2% PV)
Labour Party 26.00% 34 MPs (29 Electorates+ 5 list)
Māori Party 1.00% 2 Mps (2 electorates)
National Party 39.00% 50 Mps (37 electorates + 13 list)
New Zealand First Party 7.00% 9 Mps (no electorates)
121 seats total.
Using the numbers:
National + Act + MP = 54 seats
Even if Dunne gets in, that still only gives them 55 seats
Labour + Green + NZ1st = 64 seats, if Dunne gets in, that makes it 63 seats for the left block. I have factored in the probability of Ginny winning Ohariu.
I can’t see Winston wanting to be part of a four headed monster, or even in a Nat+NZ1+Act/MP/Dunne configuration.
However, If National got 42% and Labour got 23% on Saturday in their respective party votes (n/c to electorates won), then the left block would likely need IMP to be part of a formal coalition, or in a confidence and supply arrangement.
Other alternative is that Lab+Grn+NZ1 combined on a 60 seat bloc in 121 seat parliament could run a minority government.
A national+act+uf+mp bloc is only 58 seats in a 121 seat parliament.
I haven’t done any configurations with Conservatives as I believe people will shy away from them at the last minute and switch to Winsome Winnie instead of Crazy Colon.
Overall conclusion? This election is coming down to the wire.
You’re not taking in to account the traditional 3-4% swing left in the actual voting (even with Roy Morgan being the most accurate). Take in to account that and the high volatility this time and I think National have to be very worried.
Yep, if this poll is like the one taken before the last election, the only difference between this poll and the actual election would be that the right bloc had 2% less on the day. So National probably on 44%, Labour + Greens + NZFirst on 46% at the moment. It is going to be very close.
Laila Harré @lailaharre 2 hrs
#InternetMANA will make #TPPA a top target in post-election negs. Party vote for certainty on where we will stand: http://bit.ly/1mcHC5l
Blimming heck! What on earth is Soper on. On prime, giving Cunliffe grief for not turning up to some tinpot radio station wanting to know “is Cunliffe serious about wanting to lead the country” Has anybody heard if key is going to debate the whole hour as Cunliffe has requested??
Exactly my thoughts. Any shit these right wing turds can throw at the left they will do. Did you see Armstrong’s heap of shit today along with Frankfurter’s? Do they honestly believe the crap they write or are they, just like Soper insulting our intelligence or taking the piss.
..on a day when key admits there is mass-surveillance of nz’ers..barry ‘i’m barry soper..!..and i know s.f.a..!’ soper..the political editor of sky news..
Advance voting looks like it’ll comprise over a third of total votes this election. The running total blew past the 2008 numbers on Monday, and 2011 yesterday:
It looks set to top 410,000 tonight. In 2008 51% of advance votes were cast in the final three day period, in 2011 that was 55%. I predict that the total advance vote will be over 800 000, and if we treat the 2011 proportion as predictive then the total would be 40% of the 2011 total vote. Though I think that the total vote will be up this time too, so the advance vote proportion of that will be around 35%.
A key advantage of advance voting is that you are less susceptible to caging-list strategies that have been employed in the US as a key part of dirty political strategy. There is a nationwide need for scrutineers to monitor the advance count (downside; you’ll be locked in from 1:30-7pm with no phone access, upside; that’s shorter than the 9am-9pm that polling station scutineers are expected to stick around, and there’s only one required per party per electorate, as opposed to the dozens of polling stations). If you haven’t planned to contribute to the election day in any other way yet, this might be something to consider (get in touch with your favoured party and offer your time – the candidate has to sign off on it).
Re the polls………….not sure what this means but did some figures when the Roy Morgan came out today.
2011 RM last poll before election Result 2011…………..Last RM poll before 2014
Nat 49.5 47.31 46.5
Lab 23.5 27.48 24.00
Green 14.5 11.06 13.5
NZ 1st 6.59 6.59 8
UF .6 .6 .5
Maori 1.4 1.43 .5
Mana 1 1 (IMP)
Cons 2.65 2.65 3.5
Act 1.5 1.07 .5
Not sure what this all means, except Nats down 3% from last RM poll and then down 2% in actual election. Will check to make sure got figures right. Sorry didn’t get Mana’s actual election result.
CV’s on to it, weka. Last election, this poll had the Nats on 50.8% (3% higher than the actual result). Labour 26% (down 1.5%). Even if the overestimation is narrower this time, Key can’t form a Government without NZF on these numbers. No other option.
They also showed what would happen if Craycray sneaks in. Again, no show without Winnie (and ACT, MP, UF). The dreaded 5 headed monster!
Try running it through the calculator. I just put those TV3 figures in but adjusted down to CV’s figures for National and Craig, and it looks like National and Peters can form govt with no-one else.
True enough, weka. But why would Winnie go with National? NZF’s entire policy package (except Laura Norder) is a close fit with Labour’s. And I’m picking the opportunity to knock Key off his perch would be irresistible to a man with a big ego and a bitter memory of 3 years in the wilderness.
ok, leaving the past in the past, do you think that Labour would let a party on 7% dictate that a party on 13% couldn’t be part of govt inside cabinet?
That’s actually not quite as bad as the 2005 situation, weka! Back then, NZF and UF would not support the Greens getting any kind of cabinet posting at all. For mine, I’m not fussed. Probably the same for the Greens, too. They know they will get more policy wins under a Labour led Government, in it or out of it, so it’s in their interest to give C&S.
It would be a shame, because the Greens are ready for leadership roles, but getting Key gone is the immediate issue.
..i have written/warned of the dangers of a vote for peters..
..and i stand by all that..
..but the reality is that he is there..and he will likely hold the balance of power..
..but weighing up all the various factors/imperatives leads me to the conclusion that i wd be very surprised if he decided to prop up this corrupt/mass-surveilling aberration of the party he once belonged to..
Watching the Cunliffe Key debate. Cunliffe is knowledgeable and competent.
Key full of cliches (‘What I do know…I can say this… the point is…at the end of the day…”.)and a typical money trader…Good at gambling a profit for himself but couldn’t pass economics 101 ( or even high school home economics )
My gripe: Cunliffe’s voice was not clear enough in the final lap. He seemed to be talking almost inwardly which made his voice come across as muffled. I kept yelling at him (from the sofa) to speak more clearly but he took no notice. 😡
Put yourself in a foreign country without a passport subject to vindictive and subjective innuendo i to would be peeved and slag the natural inhabitant off …..KDC is not all bad nor is he all good he is just a natural human being, who has contributed and his interests are in part shared for change…..I sincerely hope the Scots are left to exercise free will away from the emotions behaviors influences and manipulations..
Cunliife -integrity,, intelligent visionary and super sincere. A man of substance.
Key – less intelligent- lacking vision and mainlining his reptilian insincere cliches.No real substance.
if there was any substance in anything Key said, could the right wingers elucidate? I know I’m biased but was there any sincerity or integrity in Key’s “performance”?
The Hosking – Key – Cunliffe debate was a waste of time.
FFS, if Hosking starts asking about polls and predictions for election night, the answer is not to play his game.
“The people hire, the people fire, the people are in charge on September 20 – not you Mike, not the commentators, but the people. And that’s a great day for democracy Wouldn’t you agree?”
There’s a bunch of votes right there. But sadly … we just got same old insider to insider talk, and the (dwindling) audience wouldn’t have cared.
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When they were running for election, Labour promised to overhaul the Employment Relations Act and introduce fair pay agreements to set basic pay and conditions on an industry level, preventing bad employers from undercutting good ones. They followed this up by establishing a working group, which reported back in January ...
A list of indicators of bad science – many of these are found in articles promoted by anti-fluoride activists. Anti-fluoride activists have been pouring money into a scaremongering campaign warning pregnant women not to drink fluoridated water. They claim fluoride will lower the IQ of their future child. Fluoride ...
Nothing Left To Say: Labour's pollster, Stephen Mills, remains swaddled-up in the comforting myths of the 1980s. As if the experience of Roger Douglas’s genuinely radical post-Muldoon policy agenda was literally a once-in-a-lifetime thing – as much as the party could possibly absorb for at least the next 50 years.MEMO ...
The Royal Commission on abuse in care is very significant for the disability community. For many decades last century, thousands of disabled children, and adults who managed to survive, were locked away from families and communities. This was not for anything they had done, but for the perceived threat their ...
With an unfair voting system, uneven electorates and an un-elected upper house, the UK's "democracy" is barely worthy of the name. But now the government wants to make it worse:The government has been accused of suppressing voters’ rights with the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of people after plans ...
Back in the 90's and early 2000's, the building industry was building leaky homes which should never have been granted consent. Now it turns out they've been building dodgy office blocks as well:New imaging technology has revealed hundreds of major buildings nationwide have defective or missing concrete or reinforcing steel. ...
Local body election results were released over the weekend, to joy or despair depending on where you live. In Auckland, Phil Goff trounced John Tamihere, who is muttering darkly about running for Parliament again (but which party would want him?) Wellington is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Weta Workshop, except ...
How could government evolve over the next decades? Reports of democracy’s imminent demise are greatly exaggerated. However, satisfaction with political systems in many countries is low, so there is much to do for governments of all political stripes to improve relevance and trust. Digital technologies are seen as one ...
Two years have now gone by since the Friday afternoon when my university-student son and I headed out of our Barcelona flat to a nearby primary school, designated as a polling station for the vote that was to be held the following Sunday: the referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain ...
Overruled: The joint decision of Finance Minister, Grant Robertson (Labour) and his Associate Minister, David Parker (Labour) arguably the two most powerful ministers in Jacinda Ardern’s government, to grant OceanaGold the consents which Land Information Minister, Eugenie Sage (Greens) had earlier denied them, offers bitter proof of how hard fighting ...
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...
A Statement on Abortion Law Reform by the Council of Disobedient Women On the eve of bringing an end to antiquated, anti-women abortion laws Green MP Jan Logie intends to write women out of the Bill. With a stroke of the pen, the woke are aiming for total erasure ...
Musings continue apace about “the experienced businessman!” soon to be taking up a National Party MP position. Or to be more accurate, being parachuted into a seat to shut down their former MP Jamie-Lee Ross, who despite his own shortcomings shed at least some more light on the inner workings ...
The Ugandan government wants to murder gay people:Uganda has announced plans to impose the death penalty on homosexuals. The bill, colloquially known as “Kill the Gays” in Uganda, was nullified five years ago on a technicality, but the government said on Thursday it plans to resurrect it within weeks. The ...
Freedom Of Speech? The Säuberung (cleansing by fire) was the work of the German Student Union which, on 10 May 1933, under the watchful eye of the Nazi Reichminister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, consigned 25,000 books to the flames in a ritual exorcism of “un-German thought”. According to the logic of the ...
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...
New Zealand has prided itself for decades with regard to its lack of pollution, and all will be aware that the ‘100% Pure New Zealand‘ meme is under threat through land, water and air pollution of various causes. There is another type of contamination that the country also faces: light ...
New Zealand’s media is doing its part in Japan, reassuring those in the path of the storm that they won’t miss any rugby while away from their flooded homes. New Zealand sports reporters stationed in Japan for the Rugby World Cup have had the rare and heartwarming opportunity to inform ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is the only Cabinet member in favour of putting it all on green. As Finance Minister Grant Robertson finds himself with an enormous $7.5 billion surplus, the Government has begun intense, at times contentious conversations about whether to put the money on red or black at ...
by Susanne Kemp At the start of September close to 100,000 school teachers went on strike in Jordan. They demanded a 50% pay rise. A pay rise actually agreed to by the regime back in 2014. In early October, however, in the face of government repression and threats, the teachers’ ...
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 do people still think climate change isn’t real?David ...
Back in 2011, journalist Nicky Hager published Other People's Wars, an expose on NZDF's activities over the previous decade of the "war on terror". NZDF didn't like this, and especially didn't like the fact that it was base don leaks from their own. So, they had the SIS investigate him ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is due back from select committee in two weeks, and will likely pass its final stages in November. So naturally, farmers are planning a hate-march against it. But they're not just demanding lower methane targets so they can keep on destroying the planet; they're also demanding ...
Last year, California burned. This year, to stop it happening again (or rather, to stop themselves from being found liable if it happens again), Pacific Gas and Electric is cutting power to half the state for a week:Schools are closed. Traffic lights down. Tunnels dark. Businesses unopened. Hospitals running on ...
The Best Way: Missing from the on-line voting debate is any reference to the voting system that produces turn-out figures ranging from 77 to 93 percent of registered voters. The voting system used to collect and count the votes cast in our parliamentary elections. The system that involves citizens making ...
Among the great new bunch of political friends we have been making recently is the excellent Australian-based Marxist gender-critical site, Freer Lives. So we asked the comrade who set up that blog to write something for Redline on the blog, himself, his analysis of the rise of gender politics and ...
by Don Franks The Auckland City Mission is struggling with a 40 percent increase in demand for food parcels this year. A total of 23,020 were needed by June. Last month Missioner Chris Farrelly told the Herald the “cupboards are bare” and without an emergency food drive, he can’t see ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Massey Wellington Student Association had a sit-in today. Imagine a sit-in. On a campus. Against a women’s rights meeting. Did the ’60s really happen or did we fucking dream it? They gathered in the student square, an echo chamber. Sitting on soft pillows ...
For some reasons, my post about the mystery message from inside the Downing Street bunker seemed to catch people's attention. Quite a lot of hits from NZ (unsurprisingly) and the USA (a bit more puzzlingly, but hi there, USAians!!) and 76 views from the Ukraine.I've celebrated my Ukrainian readers in ...
First, almost a score of Labour MPs seem to have sent a letter to the EU basically begging them to accept a deal - any deal - just so Britain can get the Heck on with Brexiting instead of being trapped in limbo:
by Phil Duncan In 2016 the National-led government suspended the Parent Visa Category, through which migrants were able to bring their parents into New Zealand. Since then over 5,700 people have been in immigration limbo, stuck on the visa wait list. Labour is now bringing back the scheme. Well, sort ...
The following was released yesterday (Tues, October 8) by the women’s liberation organisation Speak Up for Women. On 23 September Speak Up For Women announced that we would be holding an event at the Massey University Theaterette in Wellington. The event is called Feminism 2020. The intention of the event ...
The government is currently consulting on plans to improve freshwater quality. So naturally, farmers oppose it:South Taranaki farmers are preparing to fight proposed national freshwater changes that some fear will bankrupt them. The Government's proposed National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management, released in September, rated the Waingongoro River as one ...
Yesterday was the last day for (reliably) posting your vote away in local body elections. Turnouts are mostly much lower than the equivalent time last year (Palmerston North is down 2.3%), and so naturally people are pushing their online-voting snake oil again. Because the online census worked so well, lets ...
This essay, on the political legacy of the eugenics movement, by Kenan Malik was originally published in the Observer on 6 October 2019, under the headline ‘The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost’. Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how ...
Another year, and the government has announced another enormous government "surplus". And just like last year, its nothing of the sort. When we have people homeless and sick and hungry, when we have schools and hospitals still falling down, when we have underpaid public servants and infrastucture unmaintained or unbuilt, ...
James Forsyth at The Spectator (I know, I know) has tapped one of his contacts inside Number Ten for an insight into the Johnson administration's thinking and strategy.It is fascinating, unsettling and quite, quite mad. Some key points:Negotiations have stalled and the Johnson administration are keen to blame the EU: ...
Fatal Contact: With the arrival of captain James Cook in October 1769, the islands of what would become New Zealand ceased to be the preserve of Polynesian navigators and settlers and became a part of both the world’s map and the world’s history.THE MAORI NATIONALIST assault upon the historical meaning ...
Another round of tactical talks about forming a Government of National Unity have come to nothing with the Liberal Democrats still refusing countenance putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street:Opposition talks on Monday made little headway over when to try and vote down Boris Johnson's government and who might succeed him as ...
by Nick Rogers The debate around the meaning of sex and gender made an appearance at this year’s British Labour Party conference in Brighton. Women’s Place UK – an organisation that questions the demand that biological males who self-identify as woman should have access to women’s spaces, to all-women shortlists, ...
Yesterday I went down to Wellington to participate in the Extinction Rebellion protest. Its part of the latest global wave of XR actions, with actions happening all over the world. Some of those protests are massively disruptive: in Canada, XR is blocking major bridges, stopping people from getting to work. ...
The Workshop is a charitable trust for public good. The Workshop undertake research to find ways of communicating that will build support for the solutions that work to solve complex social and environmental problems. See their Report on Talking about Poverty and Welfare Reform below. ...
What is language? We generally assume that it a facility unique to humans, allowing us to share what’s in and on our minds. We can tell of our plans, our past exploits, our knowledge. It also allows us to lie. And yet there are vast numbers of people we can’t ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...
Speaking at the Council of Trade Unions' (CTU) biennial conference, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told unionists that any future attacks on the Government won't work. "Now, we are being attacked by the union movement in this country. You can have your views but I'm here to say standing ...
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark has used his powers to overrule a noise complaint ruling against Whenuapai airbase on the grounds of "national security". The Environment Court last month released a ruling in favour of a private developer, declaring the Auckland airbase had to comply with noise restrictions when it performs ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has opened fire against "unreconstructed morons" after NZ First MP Shane Jones was photographed on holiday holding an AR-15 rifle. Mr Peters is defending Mr Jones, telling Magic Talk host Peter Williams that his MP was just having fun "like most people do". "The ...
New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau was in attendance during the morning blessing of the Rotorua Lakefront development project. Around 60 people gathered on the shores of Lake Rotorua, including city mayor Steve Chadwick and deputy Dave Donaldson. The Lakefront development is a ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in on conversions of farmland to forestry, and also issued a warning to foreign-owned forestry companies that make up nearly 75 per cent of the industry. He said too many foreign companies had not provided enough access for domestic processors to get timber. ...
Speaking to Radio NZ, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the tightening of the parental category visa is a direct result of the Party’s coalition negotiations with the Labour Party. He said the new changes switch the financial onus from the parent moving to New Zealand to the child ...
The Coalition Government is set to cut red tape in the building and construction sector in an effort to allow more houses to be built, including prefabricated houses. The changes will enable the mass factory production of "high quality" buildings, slash the likely number of building inspections for factory produced ...
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to tackle homelessness and make sure everyone has a warm, dry home. And today, on World Homeless Day, we want to report back and update you on our progress so far. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
New Zealand Mānuka honey exporters have welcomed an initiative by the Coalition Government to help secure the term “mānuka honey” to be used exclusively by Kiwi exporters, ensuring that our multimillion-dollar industry is protected. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had recently announced that a Provincial Growth Funding of $5.7 ...
Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau has announced Provincial Growth Funding to ensure work opportunities in Turangi and Whanganui, through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi. A fund of $500,000 will go to Rafting NZ in Turangi for a 16-week river guide training course to train ...
Treasury has shown that the Coalition Government has a $7.5 billion surplus, which is $4 billion higher than what was expected in the 2019 Budget unveiled last May. It is also $2 billion higher than the actual surplus unveiled this time last year, and at a size that has not ...
Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
A six-member independent working group selected the option of moving Auckland’s port to Northport, in Whangarei, ahead of other options. In what could be New Zealand’s most ambitious infrastructure project yet, a major expansion of the Marsden Point port could happen within 15 years. The project, officially called the “Upper ...
The final Electricity Price Review recommended prohibiting prompt payment discounts but allowing “reasonable” late fees. The findings of this review was welcomed by the Coalition Government, but they hope companies will follow through with its recommendations without regulations needed to be passed. Meridian Energy had already stopped prompt payment discounts, ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi,will invest nearly $600,000 to ensure work opportunities for locals in Turangia and Whanganui, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “I’m pleased to announce the PGF ...
An export-led economy is one of New Zealand First’s key principles, and our commitment to achieving this is shown by the continuing skyrocketing demand for our beef and sheep meat exports. Beef + Lamb New Zealand's New Season Outlook 2019-20 report forecasts beef, lamb and mutton prices to lift from ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne an investment of $17.27m into bringing “world-leading” food-growing technology and the creation of more than 100 new jobs in the East Coast city. The funding comes from the Provincial Growth Fund, and included a $15 million loan to LeaderBrand, a ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development More than 100 people in Tairāwhiti’s Tolaga Bay will benefit from two employment initiatives supported by the Provincial Growth Fund, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today. “Tolaga Bay is an incredibly tight-knit community, but one in ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is supporting Gisborne business Leaderbrand to produce salad vegetables year round and create more jobs in the Tairāwhiti region, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Our support for Leaderbrand will help them build large greenhouses ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has praised the promise by New Zealand’s biggest banks not to close any provincial branches while the Coalition Government trials regional banking hubs across the country. The Minister said the announce was the “first sign of hope for regional communities”, many of which have ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have delivered an upgrade of the SuperGold Card website and a new smartphone app, which will help unlock the full benefits of the SuperGold Card for 750,000 New Zealand seniors.Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters, ...
Delivering a key election campaign promise, New Zealand First is proud to have accomplished a long overdue upgrade of the SuperGold Card today. At an event in Auckland, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joined Minister for Seniors Hon. Tracey Martin in unveiling the new website and smartphone app which ...
The Government today announced its support for a project that could substantially reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from cattle. The announcement was made as part of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor’s visit to Nelson’s Cawthron Aquaculture Park. The Cawthron Institute will receive $100,000 from the Government’s ...
Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni has welcomed the first reading of the New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Legislation Amendment Bill. “Every New Zealander has a stake in New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension,” says Carmel Sepuloni. “They are our most common form of social assistance – nearly 800,000 New ...
Babies in Auckland aged six months and over can receive a free vaccination and children will all have access to vaccines, Associate Minister of Health Julie Anne Genter announced today at Papatoetoe High School. The move comes as part of Government efforts to step up the fight against measles. ...
***Check against delivery*** Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here, and to have the honour of opening this important conference on behalf of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. Let us take the opportunity to acknowledge all the people who have helped make today possible, including our special ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash says the safety of frontline officers and members of the public will be the focus of a new trial of specialist Police response teams in three of our largest urban centres. Police have this morning released details of an initiative to be trialled in Counties Manukau, ...
The Minister of Fisheries is calling for entries for a new public award to celebrate innovation in our seafood sector. “I have established the Seafood Sustainability Awards to recognise and celebrate those throughout industry, tangata whenua and communities who demonstrate outstanding dedication and innovation towards the sustainability of New Zealand’s ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter welcomes leaders in the private sector taking action on closing their gender pay gaps to ensure a fairer workplace for all New Zealanders. Ms Genter today launched a new report, Addressing the gender pay gap and driving women’s representation in senior leadership, from the Champions for ...
Government Ministers today welcomed the release of a marine environment report highlighting the four key issues affecting our oceans, estuaries and coastlines. The release underlines the importance of government proposals to combat climate pollution, ensure clean freshwater, protect biodiversity, make land use more sustainable, and reduce waste and plastic. Environment ...
The Government has approved funding for a new acute mental health facility for Waikato which will provide better care and support to people with mental health and addiction issues. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Dr David Clark announced the $100 million project to replace the aging Henry Rongomau ...
The Government is making progress on its goal to integrate te reo Māori into education by 2025, with over 500 teachers and support staff already graduating from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. Kelvin Davis made the announcement at an awards ceremony in Waikanae today, for ...
Statistics Minister James Shaw has welcomed the first release of 2018 Census data. The first release of data today, 23 September, includes key data on population, regional growth, the number of homes and the size of different ethnic groups in New Zealand. Data from the 2018 Census will support the ...
Minister for Statistics James Shaw today announced a public consultation on a proposed algorithm charter for government agencies. The charter has been developed by the Government Chief Data Steward in response to growing calls for more transparency in government use of data. Computer algorithms – procedures or formulas for solving ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor, Climate Change Minister James Shaw and visiting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte co-hosted a business roundtable in Auckland this morning focused on working together to address climate change. “The Netherlands is an important partner for New Zealand. We share a strong agricultural history. Sustainable agribusiness and ...
The Government is taking action to build an inclusive economy where more of us receive our fair share at work and businesses can compete on great products and services, not undercutting wages and conditions, Immigration and Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. Two consultations launched today seek feedback ...
The future for New Zealand’s threatened indigenous freshwater fish looks brighter with the passing of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill in Parliament today said Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “Until now, our freshwater fish legislation has been 20 years out of date. We have lacked effective tools to ...
At 1.30pm tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis will join about 65 million people around the globe in ShakeOut, the world’s biggest earthquake drill. The annual drill is to remind people of the right action to take during an earthquake which is to Drop, Cover, Hold, and to practise their ...
Kiwis are benefiting from higher wage growth and low inflation under the Coalition Government. Stats NZ data out today shows the rise in the cost of living remains low, as annual Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation fell to 1.5% in September from 1.7% in June. “The low inflation comes as ...
New Zealand’s economic strength and resilience has been recognised in a major update on the state of the global economy. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook released overnight shows a reduced global growth forecast over the next two years as issues like the US-China trade war and Brexit take hold. ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little has today introduced a new Bill to prevent terrorism and support the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas. The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill gives the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to the High Court to impose control orders on New Zealanders who ...
A Bill that proposes targeted changes to simplify the processes for Māori land owners when engaging with the Māori Land Court has had its First Reading today. “The approach taken by the Government is to ensure that the protection of Māori land remains a priority as we seek to improve ...
Let me first thank all the new unionists and members in the room. There is nothing more important to improving people’s working lives than people making the decision to care, to get on board and help, to take up the reins and get involved. Congratulations to you. You bring the ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has signed a certificate exempting the activity of engine testing at Whenuapai Airbase from the Resource Management Act 1991. The Act gives the Minister of Defence the power to exempt activities for the purposes of national security. The certificate will mean the recent Environment Court ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced New Zealand will join the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action while attending APEC meetings in Chile. The objective of the 39 member Coalition is to share information and promote action to tackle climate change. It was formed in April this year, in ...
Feedback sought– Lyttelton commercial zone parking The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to remove on-site car parking requirements for new developments in the Lyttelton commercial zone. The proposal, by Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section 71 of the Greater ...
Hon Minister Poto Williams Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration MEDIA STATEMENT Tuesday 15 October 2019 Feedback sought – Hagley Oval The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal about Hagley Oval. The proposal was developed by Regenerate Christchurch ...
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...
"Let’s start by acknowledging that it has been a huge year. " Police Association Annual Conference James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou katoa. President of the Police Association, Chris Cahill; Members of the Association and ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister of Defence Ron Mark have announced the New Zealand Government’s decision to again deploy a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 (P-3) maritime patrol aircraft to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions imposing sanctions against North Korea. New ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand continues to have serious concerns for peace and stability in north-east Syria. “Recent reports that hundreds of ISIS-affiliated families have fled from a camp are deeply concerning from a humanitarian and security perspective”, Mr Peters says. “While we acknowledge Turkey’s domestic security ...
Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor is warning travelling Kiwis to be vigilant as the high-season for the crop-eating brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is under way. “We’re on high alert to stop BMSB arriving in NZ. The high season runs until April 30 and we’ve strengthened our measures to stop stink ...
The Government is moving swiftly to change the law to improve the welfare and pastoral care of students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. Cabinet has agreed to several changes, including creating a new mandatory Code of Practice that sets out the duty of pastoral care ...
The Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage has launched a new comprehensive trapping guide for community trappers to help them protect our native birds, plants and other wildlife, at Zealandia in Wellington today. ‘A practical guide to trapping’, has been developed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and was launched during ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter welcomes PHARMAC’s move to improve access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs). PHARMAC has today announced it will fund the full cost of Mirena and Jaydess for anyone seeking long term contraception, lifting previous restrictions on access to Mirena. “I welcome women having greater choices ...
The Government has approved the next stage of a major redevelopment of Taranaki Base Hospital, which will deliver new and improved facilities for patients. Health Minister Dr David Clark has announced details of a $300 million dollar project to build a new East Wing at the New Plymouth hospital. It ...
Extra funding will allow Rural Support Trusts to help farming families, says Minister for Rural Communities and Agriculture Damien O’Connor. “I know that rural families are worried about some of the challenges facing them, including the ongoing uncertainty created by the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. “Those concerns sit alongside ongoing worries ...
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to present certificates to the 16 graduates who have completed a beekeeping course delivered by the Howard League. Let us start by acknowledging Auckland Prison’s Deputy Prison Director Tom Sherlock, and Acting Assistant Regional Commissioner of Corrections Northern Region Scott Walker - ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson leaves this weekend to attend the APEC Finance Ministers meeting in Santiago, Chile. Discussions between APEC Finance Ministers at the meeting will include the effects of the current global economic uncertainty, risks for APEC economies and sustainable development of the region. While at APEC Grant Robertson ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says for Pacific people, language can be a source of strength. It can help ground us and give us confidence. When we speak them, our languages provide us with an immediate and intimate access to our identity and our story - and ...
The Coalition Government has announced an action plan to improve the wellbeing of disabled New Zealanders by addressing inequalities in play, active recreation and sport. The initiative includes training to develop a workforce that understands the needs of children and young people with a range of impairments, advocacy for fit ...
The construction sector is being freed up to allow more homes to be built more quickly as the Government cuts through some of the red tape of the Building Act. “Every New Zealander deserves a warm, dry, safe home and old inefficiencies in the Building Act make building slow and ...
New Zealand First members will vote on a policy today that would allow businesses of all sizes to enforce 90-day trials when they employ people straight out of prison. ...
"Each time she held her lighter underneath the pipe and sucked the smoke into the back of her throat, the promise was there": a New Zealand tragedy by Alice Tawhai. ...
With the future of Mediaworks’ TV business hanging in the balance, Al Jazeera news presenter Kamahl Santamaria reflects on what the imperilled channel meant, and continues to mean, to him.I always liked the logo. The fresh bright colours, the nod to a koru in its shape, and just the fact ...
There are still many barriers preventing people from voting in local elections. Laura O’Connell Rapira proposes some social solutions.The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here.To vote in the local elections, I cast ...
What’s really stood out for me being back in Tokyo is the unique qualities of Japan’s spectators, writes Richard Light, professor of sport coaching at the University of Canterbury.The Rugby World Cup has thrown a global spotlight on Japan over recent weeks. Not just the rugby: the distinctive culture and ...
As the New Zealand First Party gathers for its annual conference, the question swirling in the year is how it can carve out a path to avoid electoral defeat in 2020, writes Jo Moir for RNZ. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s a familiar break up excuse that’s used ...
To the early intervention therapists, to the teachers, to the speech therapists, the occupational therapists, music therapists, diabetes nurses and all: you change the world.When I was married almost a decade ago we had the following reading at our wedding:You are holding up a ceilingwith both arms. It is very ...
The faces said it all. The smiles of the European leaders crowded round Boris after the Brexit deal was struck. The deal his opponents – no, pretty much everyone – said was impossible.So what’s in it? The detail is still opaque, but subject to gremlins in the fine print, ...
Iran attracts an onslaught of negative media in New Zealand and Western media. But is it fair or deserved? David Robie has spent several weeks travelling in the country on sabbatical and finds the media negativity far from the reality of the “most friendly” country he has ever visited ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Leigh Sullivan discusses the week in politics with Michelle Grattan. They talk about Alan Jones accusing Prime Minister Scott Morrison of failing the immediate needs of drought-striken farmers, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anita Parbhakar-Fox, Senior Research Fellow in Geometallurgy/Applied Geochemistry, The University of Queensland Last month, scientists uncovered a mineral called Edscottite. Minerals are solid, naturally occurring substances that are not living, such as quartz or haematite. This new mineral was discovered after an ...
The Auckland-based collective talk origins, ambitions and making the rave accessible to everybody.Friendly Potential is an outfit that defies easy summary. They’re among the country’s most ambitious and prolific club promoters. In their almost five-years of operation, they’ve been responsible for the local debuts of electronic music icons including Detroit ...
Analysis: Two polls show support for Labour sliding, the government is accused of breaking another promise and the Greens's refusal to back a bill forces Labour to rely on National to get it through. ...
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Security footage of NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell being thrown out of a Tauranga bar looks unlikely to ever be aired - despite his leader Winston Peters promising a screening. ...
Amnesty International is concerned that Justice Minister Andrew Little's Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill could have the potential to undermine human rights in New Zealand. The Bill would give the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to ...
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Recently the Health Promotion Agency released a report into hazardous drinking in New Zealand. The report shows that Māori who drink alcohol and live in deprived circumstances are less likely to have a harmful relationship with alcohol if they ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona R Martin, Senior Lecturer in Convergent and Online Media, University of Sydney One of the basic tenets of the ABC Act is independence from government. Yet once again, in contravention to that principle, the federal government is trying to push through ...
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The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is calling on Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi to rule out any taxpayer-funded purchase or bailout for Mediaworks’s channel Three. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “For the last few months Mediaworks ...
The Police Commissioner's announcement that squadcars of officers with automatic rifles will patrol New Zealand's streets is dangerous and unnecessary, according to the criminal justice community organisation People Against Prisons Aotearoa. The ...
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In our defence of our coalition Government policy on climate change, we fully support Government plan to use rail funding for rail infrastructure upgrades to promote use rail infrastructure for freight around NZ. ...
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An EveningReport.nz investigation by Kevin ListKiwibank services. Image by Kevin List.Evening Report looks into the separation of Kiwibank from New Zealand Post, and considers the impact on the public’s access to banking services in their communities.Kiwibank. What’s going on? Kiwibank and New Zealand Post are in the ...
Local Government New Zealand today confirmed what many local election commentators have observed; that more of the voting public cast their ballots in favour of women candidates than ever before. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington (this week we totted up the data a day early, on Wednesday, to let our books ed. ...
New Zealand's mineral manufacturing sector is expected to face some testing times, with softer prices, tighter margins and sluggish export markets. ...
Portugal has been painted by pro-cannabis legalisation groups as a model to follow. Yet just last month, the mayor of Porto contradicted his previous pro-harm reduction position and endorsed reintroducing criminal penalties for drug use in public spaces. ...
Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Kevin Short announced today the inclusion of six Cook Island First World War soldiers in the New Zealand and Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s official rolls of honour. ...
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MediaWorks’ owners have called time after years of losses from its TV division. Sources say the company will announce it is for sale – if no buyers emerge, it will close within months.Three is facing the biggest crisis in its three decade history today, as its ownership will soon announce ...
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Open mike 17/09/2014 
Open mike is your post.
I find this unbelievable:
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NSA tipped Key off in advance of Greenwald’s revelations about the GCSB. Andrea Vance reports:
Well how did Greenwald ‘take’ his information to the US spy agency on Sunday?
Was he not here at the time?
In the digital age “taking it to” can mean contact via email, txt, phone, etc. Also, it could just have easily been “taken there” by people in other parts of the world working with Greenwald – Intercept people/editors/lawyers, etc.
But on a sunday (or Saturday) in the US?
You think the NSA won’t get out of bed or off the golf course for things like this? Pretty sure the NSA has staff 24/7 😉
The more interesting question is why Greenwald took it to them, and the timing.
and working across every major time zone, I would say
The Lidless Eye of Sauron never sleeps.
I don’t know if thishas been discussed already but the Herald is reporting that
“Questions from the Herald saw a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister saying the new GCSB law passed last year had nothing to do with “Initiative 7418″, the New Zealand name for Project Speargun.”
Can someone direct me to the public statement that connects 7418 to “Project Speargun”, other than this one?
More lies from the PM’s office/PM.
He never won a Pulitzer Prize.
Please show a link to him on doing this.
The newspaper he worked for did though.
He just regurgitated stolen information
Same ilk as Hager
Of course in the public interest.
Lets see if the public are interested on Saturday.
LOL
April 2012
noted the two options: 11.1
Option I: extends NCSC protection to the core. public-sector, critical national infrastructure and organisations of national significance, provides an automated investigation capability and an “effects” defence option;
11.2 Option 2 (includes Option I above), and the development of a Detailed Business case, the high-speed detection and defence capabilities to protect government and industry and potentially extends a degree of protection to allNew Zealanders to be developed in consultation with unD and the National Cyber Policy Office onCo);
12 noted that the implementation of Option 2 is preferred, .but requires significant
Scoping and consultation in order to identify…z
. 13 agreed to extend the scope of the NCSC to cover central government, critical national infrastructure operators and specified organisations of national significance;
14 agreed to proceed with Option I in paragraph 11.1 above ;
Present: in HonJohn Key Hon Bill English (Chair) HDiiJudith Collins HDn Tony Ryall Hon David Carter Hon Panla Bennett Hon Craig EOSs Hon John Banks Distribution: Cabinet Conimittee
2 Sept 2013
noted that in 2012… directsd the GCSB to develop a detailed business case for implementation of Option 2 in 2013
..rescinded thle decision referred to in patagraph I above on the development of a detailed business case for Option 2; …..
Karol
When Key says he told them to stop in March 2013, do you know what he is referring to, cos this suggests he didnt rescind option 2 until September 2013? The gscb bill was passed in August 2013.
It also means that the gcsb had been told to prepare a business case on option 2 in 2013. Key seems to be saying today that by September 2013, when they were told to stop, they had produced nothing?
“.Key has said he canned a plan for mass surveillance in March 2013 because it was too intrusive. ”
His own documents show the decision for a business plan for option 2 was rescinded in September 2013.
Option two is what he must be relying on as being “project spearhead”, otherwise those documents do his claim no good.
So, given option 2 wasnt rescinded until September 2013, the next question is
If he canned the plan for mass surveillance in March 2013… What were the documents he released referring to?
lol
😉
It probably doesnt matter nearly as much as whether Greenwald won a pulitzer prize
When is someone in power going to impeach Key and his office for continuing to lie about his role as head of security and intelligence and his seedy record of widespread NZ intelligence harvesting & vague lack of details and TPPA agreements?
This is another classic Nixon affair, where Nixon at least defended himself by continually kept saying “I have never lied” this sad sack of a man hides behind his power of his office and the MSM does nothing.
MSM are a growing part of the problem don’t expect them to step up as they are owned.
MSM the third ‘track’ of Dirty Politics.
Social media may become ( as it has in Scotland) the way to make the MSM irrelevant.
the latest jaw-dropping example was key on tvone breakfast..(a few mins ago..)
..interviewed by the female co-compere..
..she got in a couple of fringe-flicks..and lotsa giggles..and blushes..
(i half-expected her to rip her bodice open..and to offer herself up to key..)
..and it should be short-listed for softest-interview-of-the-year award..
10000% Philip, shocking sop of host- Journo she Ali Pugh rates worst so far, shame on her.
i think the world needs a dedicated ‘the wisdoms of ali pugh’ youtube-channel..
Yep Pugh was useless.
Here was Key, in defence of the reason he hadn’t told us they were planning and partly implementing mass collection of data saying … “blah blah blah governments look at all sorts of stuff all the time and I don’t think its feasible for a govt to explain everything it is considering and looking at to the public- I mean that just doesn’t make sense I reckon” …
… useless Pugh then completely and utterly missed the obvious … “but this wasn’t just some everyday mundane matter was it Prime Minister, there was a review and implementation of new spy legislation so that information that you withheld was entirely relevant and intensely in the public interest. Wasn’t it Prime Minister.?”
useless Pugh just went “yep”
These useless interviewers actually make things worse. They allow the news to become distorted away from the truth.
useless
Media repeaters, reinforcers and spokespeople for John Key
I wonder if the electoral commissioner will look into all the aggrandisement stories national are getting from the private media outlets?
Nah silly me, electoral commission just likes banning songs.
A question on Stuff
Should the Planet Key song be allowed, especially so close to the election?
just shy of 60% said – Yes, it’s free speech and artistic expression
only 20% wanted it banned.
With almost 12% just not caring.
Mmmmmmmmmm – out of touch, fixing an election, writing the rules to suit one side over another?
We would still need investigative journalists. Probably ones that are funded by government rather than employed by media companies. They’d be fully independent and would report through the internet and broadcast.
“Probably ones that are funded by government rather than employed by media companies.”
I think that would be just as problematic as being funded by private media organisations.
Just so long as the government doesn’t have any say about what the journalists investigate or publish and there’s no advertising involved it shouldn’t be.
And, yes, private corporations do have a say in what journalists investigate and publish as admitted by Rupert Murdock.
No one is denying private companies manipulate the news.
And having the government fund journalists is a terrible idea. There would be immense pressure to give good reporting on the government of the day. If you think otherwise you are terribly naive
Hi TheContrarian,
I’d have to say that the reporting of Brent Edwards on (publicly funded) RNZ comes as close to objective in the MSM as anyone I’ve heard (or read).
He always lays out the logic of his analysis clearly and, if anything, is more likely to be critical of the current government, when warranted, than just about any MSM journalist from a private media outlet.
I take your point about purse strings but it’s perfectly possible to keep publicly funded institutions independent of the government of the day.
If it weren’t possible it would make you wonder why we trust publicly appointed judiciary in NZ. Perhaps there should be judges appointed by private interests to prevent government interference or pressure over their decisions?
No it’s not. In fact, it’s the only logical solution for journalism due to the fact that the corporations manipulate the news for their own ends.
Pressure that the journalists could then write about because the top down dictatorial control that we have now in the MSM and previously in NZBC just wouldn’t be there (Yes, I’m quite aware of how our broadcasting used to be manipulated by the government). I’m sure that real time reporting of such manipulation would result in the said government collapsing.
Nope.
Oh, and I’m pretty sure that I’ve have seen people say that the private corporations don’t manipulate the news. Usually Actoid types exclaiming that privatisation and competition fixes everything.
You have a terrible naive view of the state as a necessarily benevolent entity, Draco.
How about if the National Government were publicly funding journalists? What do you think the outcome would be?
hosking? 🙂
But although I see your point, a government entity with ringfenced funding and statutory independence will always be less biased than an entity funded by corporate dollars and.or advertising revenue.
Neither will be perfect, but (even with hosking) tvnz is still miles better than fox news.
If we’ve set up the funding right the same as if a Labour or Greens or Mana government were in place as the government wouldn’t be able to do anything to pressure the journalists without it becoming public knowledge.
All you really show here is your stupidity as you exclaim that something that obviously can be done can’t be done.
See, this is why we need the power of recall. So that protecting our democracy isn’t left solely in the hands of those that would corrupt it.
nah.
Although an ostracism ballot at the same time as each general election might be useful 🙂
Sadly Dotcom would win.
I reckon there’d be enough candidates to split the vote 🙂
Impeachment is a US constitutional mechanism. To my knowledge it doesnt exist here.
I dont know on what basis the GG could step in, but not a few days from the election.
John Key on TV1 this morning (clip heard on RadioNZ newsclip with Guyon Espinor)
In context of not disclosing work on the business case, WHILE debate raged in Parliament on the GCSB Bill.
JK: “are we really saying the new standard now is every time I consider something, and ask a department to look at something, and then ultimately rest on this, we would have a public discussion about this? (this) is really a bit silly”
At around 30 seconds in
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/20149924/it-specialist-discusses-nsa-request-to-have-wellington-office
Key, joyce, banks and a couple of others authorised a business case into option 2 on or about 2012.
In December 2013 the same group rescinded that decision…
Key is telling us not a single document was produced by the GCSB between those times. I dont believe that.
I think there’s more to one of the issues raised over on the Flashback story, so I’m going to put it here to give it some air to breathe.
7 years ago on the Standard this was asked;
Bryce Edwards 10
15 October 2007 at 1:03 pm
“Who are Francis Till, Jason Ede, Rhiannon White?
It looks like they work for National MPs in Parliament. But shouldn’t this be a extra-parliamentary issues for the Party HQ?”
I’m going to ignore Jason Ede for the moment but the other two are;
Francis Till
https://web.archive.org/web/20050212173229/http://till.co.nz/tillnet
The working journal of Francis Till,
an American writer freelancing
in New Zealand and web editor of
the National Business Review
http://nz.linkedin.com/pub/francis-till/0/713/4aa
Interesting list on his “Viewers of this profile also viewed…”
Rhiannon White (linked from Francis Till’s linkedIN page)
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rhiannon-white/11/2a1/542?trk=pub-pbmap
Director, Product Management (Advertising), Shazam Entertainment Ltd
Menlo Park, California (San Francisco Bay Area) Online Media
The two most obvious questions would be when did Till come into the country (i.e. did he come here at the same time as Key) and why does there seem to be seamless career path from NZ National Party propagandising to the Californian Entertainment industry.
“Shazam Entertainment Limited is a media engagement company that connects people to the media through their mobile devices. The company offers Shazam, an application that connects people to the music, TV shows, and brands they love, as well as enables them to discover, explore, buy, and share; and allows them to share their discoveries on Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Pinterest, and Google+”
Thanks. Edwards gave the wrong url for his blog.
So Key is nothing more than a messenger/facilitator set up to parrot (coached through US Corporations) to sell NZ?
So his first goal was take over and shell out a continual spin from these sources while cushioning our economy with a constant borrowing of $300 Million weekly while he paves the way for his rich Corporates to steal and gut the country?
I’d say that this is correct, but we need a little more to back it up.
It really does look that way Local Kiwi.
Apparently so.
and so far at least, he has done quite well, and almost delivered the TPPA just as ‘they’ have delivered it to him ….. huge sigh …
waiting to exhale on Sunday morning.
In 2001, Francis Till was working for PC World NZ.
In 2005 Francis Till was working for NBR
In 2007 Francis Till, as John key’s web designer, complained to TS for using an altered pic of John Key.
When Key was elected in 2008, Till was working for John Key as his web designer, as indicated in an interesting article by Deborah Hill Cone. In the article, Cone seems to have the inside running on the VRWC – Slater, Odgers, Franks, et al.
Is this the same Francis Till that is nowhead of web services for Otago Uni?
And does he use the twitter handle “Miss Francis Till”?
Rhiannon White has a qualification from Otago Uni.
Is there an Otago connection, and is this how Bryce Edwards knows something about them?
in similar vein, karol — who is the short-haired blonde woman, about same height, but maybe younger than Key, who is always at his side in interviews and appearances and usually leaves in same car with him?
Yes it looks like you’ve got Francis to rights. The twitter handle has a reference to his american parents and it connects him to Otago as well.
Again, Hill Cone up to her neck in the dirt. She’s not as high profile as the awful Glucina but Hill Cone gifted Slatee a media award so arguably worse.
Side note: covenient that Slater gets a ‘prestigious’ award at the very time he’s trying to be classed as legitimate media… You’d almost think it was planned. Or even paid for. Hill Cone was the only judge of Best Blog.
Andrea Vance has a second story out today, based on Greenwald interview:
Greenwald exposes the way Key tried to mislead with the release of the CORTEX documents.
Greenwald knows how to ask the right questions and just doesn’t uncritically accept every word out of Key’s slippery, slurry mouth.
Later today I will quote Option 1 here in full because it begun implementation in 2012 and was not rescinded the way Option 2 was.
Option one talks about the “automated investigative capacity”
Then there is Key deciding that the documents werent so secret anyway, not when his “reputation” was at stake… which means he could have released them during the GCSB Bill debate, but didn’t…
“It also emerged yesterday the documents which Mr Key said he made public to protect his reputation threatened massive damage to New Zealand’s wellbeing if made public without permission, going by the GCSB’s own threat estimates.
The four documents were previously marked at the “Secret” level of classification. The GCSB guide to security classifications says the “compromise” of “Secret” information could “damage the security, defence or international relations of New Zealand and/or friendly governments”.
Mr Key’s office refused to explain the process for making the documents public but said the Prime Minister wasn’t concerned about danger arising from their losing “secret” classification”
“Greenwald knows how to ask the right questions and just doesn’t uncritically accept every word out of Key’s slippery, slurry mouth”.
It’s been a real treat having him here in NZ, he is breath of fresh air and oasis of rational questioning and reporting. I hope our “journalists” are paying attention to what a real journalist looks and sounds like.
On 9 November 2012 an “unauthorised and un-notified software change” to the “to the wavelength switching platform” was made on the Sydney side of the Southern cross cable. It caused a “catastrophic” internet outage. Was this when the software was implemented needed to spy on all of us?
+1 @T
This is but one of the reasons I find Ferguson’s claims, and the CEO of Southern Cross Cable just a little hollow. (I.e. the need for ‘deep sea divers’; and “I’d know about it”, etc.). I can’t remember when, but I do recall a contractor accidently ‘damaging’ the cable north of Auckland in the past. Elsewhere I commented on WDM (wavelength division multiplexing), thinking that with refinement some sort of like-technology (and with NSA’s investment in R&D etc.) a passive tap is not beyond the realms of possibility. Souther Cross also claim the cable is configured in a ‘self-healing’ configuration, so that minor interruptions (perhaps except at a couple of key points) can go unnoticed as long as customers are unaffected.
The claims by both Ferguson and the CEO by their nature mean (if they’re genuine in there being ‘NO tapping’) assume they know what goes on by ALL their staff 24/7; or that they’re also being disingenuous and complicit. Aside from all that, tapping at router level …. the fact that elsewhere in the world it’s already acknowledged …. the coincidences of various visitors to the country …. the recent claim by Peters that an NSA presence in Auckland is certain and that he knows the address …. the fact that its in both Ferguson and the CEO’s interests to make such statements (in Ferguson’s case – his legacy; in the CEO’s – for business reasons) ….
In short – hollow and deceitful – but then I guess they’re ‘protecting’ us aren’t they ??
To be fair to Ferguson, he stepped away from his job as GCSB director in 2011 and this happened in November 2012. I always suspected a bust up between him and John Key about the legality of spying on New Zealanders and Dotcom that made him step down before that happened. When that happened he was blamed but in fact it was Hugh Wolfensohn, who was the acting director, who authorized the illegal spying.
Increasingly Key’s feet have the appearance of clay. Increasingly the personal demeanour is anything but relaxed. Increasingly the emperor has no clothes. Resort to “loser” and “rather large butt” is pretty pathetic really. True, worshippers at The Temple of TheGodKey won’t be phased. Who cares ? Reflecting their own realities they’re in thrall to “selfie” in its fuller definition and it’s tribal.
Of greater importance is the evergrowing sense across the nation at large that here’s a prevaricating wide boy who can’t be trusted. Check out the journalist’s robust “Why not ?” in the clip below. The manufactured gloss is tarnishing daily. ‘Challenege’ is in the air. That’s what matters electorally.
If Saturday doesn’t see sufficient ‘YawnKey’ to scotch the specious royal honorific for strutting in Hawaii…….imagine the howls of derision when that does occur. Poor Madge. Expect she’s not gonna see it as a decent quid pro quo for Scotland……
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11325926
Watch Key’s mouth. His eyes don’t dart as much when he lies now, clearly been trained, but his mouth is doing lots of odd stuff.
What is it you are all so desperately trying to hide that you are prepared to sacrifice NZ’s security for? The current biggest security threat to NZ is already in Australia and maybe here, but you all want to ignore that & knobble our security service?
The Left will be the first to cry “why didn’t the government do something to protect us” if we are subject to an act of terror in NZ.
Sorry to burst your fearmonger bubble: the people who’ve been telling you it’s all about terrorism, in private, among themselves, they discuss economic espionage and intellectual property.
They don’t give a toss if you get beheaded so long as they get paid.
We have already been subjected to a real act of terror (as opposed to just the government trying to terrify us) in New Zealand which the GCSB did nothing to protect us from.
What makes NZ more likely to be a location for an act of terror?
– Primarily acting as a stooge for the US which has committed long and sustained acts of terror against sovereign states for immoral and illegitimate reasons,
– spying on other sovereign states that we are not in conflict with and using our location and access to allow others to do so;
– sending our defence forces in at the request of the US despite there being no credible intelligence that indicates this approach will improve the living conditions of those countrymen or women. In fact, historical evidence shows that it usually results with deterioration of living conditions and increases the likelihood of extremist groups taking power;
– using intelligence systems to spy on and target those who disagree with the government of the time, and use intimidation techniques to get them to change behaviours – even if they are legitimate and peaceful. When you remove the right to disagree by legitimate and peaceful means, you increase the likelihood that desperation will result in ramping up actions.
In essence, failing to act like a sovereign state that upholds values such as human rights for all, and avoidance of unnecessary or ineffective conflict – is what is going to make us vulnerable to acts of terrorism.
+100 Molly
+100 molly
+100 Molly
Damn right.
Mike, why are you promoting thugs and criminals to the role of terrorist? As they are thugs and criminals should not good old fashioned police work sort out the problem, where is the money for that solution? But no, lets go for fear, mixed with just a little xenophobia, and the desire to keep an addiction to snooping into people’s lives so we can spy. Life is not a James Bond novel – the cold war is over, criminals will say any old shit to make themselves look good. FFS grow up – this is about your rights and your freedoms – I thought the right wing supported those ideas.
1. If we remain neutral and ethical we won’t be subject to acts of terror
2. John Key’s and National’s kowtowing to what the US wants is increasing the chance of being subjected to acts of terror and other acts of retaliation from other states
3. Mass surveillance doesn’t actually increase the chances that the police will intercept terrorists. It does mean that the government can pick up on people who disagree with them though which I’m sure you’re more than happy with (while the government is National).
+100 DTB
Please post your full name, address occupation and phone number. Then i will answer your question.
[lprent: No pestering the
trollsother commenters to out themselves. It is against house rules. ]peters is just confirming on tv3 that the americans have a spooking-base in auckland..
..he knows the address..
..and he calls greenwald/snowden ‘totally credible’..
..and that key is lying..
..(he is 9.1% for preferred prime minister in reid research poll out this morn..three points behind cunnliffe..bloody hell.!..)
Ah, Winston, forever confused by the difference between what he wants to know, what he thinks he knows, and what he really knows …
Still, this story is bubbling along nicely.
he says he knows this from his time in government..
..and that is how he is so certain that key also knows all about it..
..and so once again..is lying to the people of nz..
someone should keep a list of the claims that Peters makes, and how many of them pan out in the way he implies
Phillip, he also said he knows the address because he used to ‘oversee them as Deputy Prime Minister’, what is he doing overseeing the NSA? He is old and confused.
Lurgee,
Funny your lack-shitless bullshit leader Lie-key has changed his position on the spooking-base/ surveillance issue daily.
Key even forgot to tell us Kiwis he attends the shadow ops global Nazi founded Bilderberg group with a one world Government agenda controlled by them also?
Who did you say was confused?
I had no idea the right wing concept of a one world government with Bilderberg associated would be so popular with someone commenting on a Labour (so kind of left) blog in New Zealand. Am I missing something?
[lprent: Yes, you are about to start missing writing on our site after maligning it.
Banned 8 weeks for stupidity. Read the about and the policy. I really can’t be bothered indulging lazy fools who don’t read the house rules. ]
lprent
It seems that you may be in error about rich maligning the site, when all he called it was; “a Labour (so kind of left) blog in New Zealand”.
Note that he did not say a “Labour Party blog”, and the about you referred him to states; “it’d be fair to say that all of us share a commitment to the values and principles that underpin the broad labour movement” (under; “What’s your political ‘angle’?”, with similar elsewhere). Plus the site does proclaim itself; “The New Zealand voice of the labour movement”, in the hometab.
When I saw this earlier, I thought that the maligning must have occurred in a different comment, but have not been able to see anything objectionable thus far.
[lprent: Do I care? It isn’t a “Labour” blog. It has always been a “labour movement” blog which is and always has been a hell of a lot larger than a single political party.
If someone is too stupid to read the about then I will educate them the hard way. That is because invariably people that open their mouths on a blog and presume to know what it is are arrogant fuckwits who really need to understand the consequences of not investigating the social media that they are using. It is really bad manners.
My experience has been that the only reason that people say variations on that theme is because they then proceed either smear the Labour party with our sins or try to smear us. Either way I’ll give them bans of anything from a few days to a year or two the first time I see it – depends on how cranky I feel. They tend to get a bit more cautious at the next site. For some reason this semi-arbitrary sentencing behaviour never seems to constrain the growth of people commenting or the numbers of comments that they leave. I suspect that it enhances it.
I view it as a requirement to running a blog – educating the pig-ignorant ]
The crux seems to be in the capitalisation – lower denoting a broad and imprecise description, upper denoting a specific entity’s name…
@ Pasupial
It seems to me to be about the meaning that relates to a word having either a capital or a lower case start. The difference between Labour (which can be used as a single word referring to the Labour Party) which these days is full of nice middle class people on good incomes, with a few lower-income asperashunal ones sprinkled on the top like tasty, poppy seeds,
and, labour which stands for the generalised working class often unskilled, low skilled, semi-skilled and with wages that generally match. So big difference between Labour and labour. Capisce?
I would have thought that a thoughtful person like yourself would have picked that up. Rich was just suffering from being a new-ish guy on the site, and put his foot in it. There is quite a lot of deliberate misinformation about the site and sometimes one more is the last straw with our sysop.
greywarbler
Now that it’s pointed out, I can see the difference between the two. Though it didn’t strike me on first reading, and since I just C&Pd the offending portion I missed it when I made my comment as well.
I guess rich was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with that one. Maybe the attempted deflections from the Dirty Politics crew (with their; TS is just the same as WO, nonsense) have put our fine sysop a bit on edge.
@ Pasupial 5.17
Yes he is a fine sysop, and does get a bit testy when too many oddities mount up in the day. I think you are right about all.
* Wonders if I should go off and read them, nah, too lazy* 😈
Mostly they just say “don’t be a fool on our site and waste our time dealing with it”.
You’re just argumentative 😈
😆 funny how things can turn eh?
i’ll let you know the answer to that on sunday..
I want to hear about the policies of all parties in the few days before election day and see and hear the candidates .
Sick of the media’s obsession with poor maligned Key, mass surveillance, Kimdottycom, CGSB etc ad-nauseum.
Key has high profile and all others have low profile. Couldn’t have stage managed it better myself.
Have you got a postage stamp? If so key should be able to list all of Nationals policies on it for you.
Have to agree in large with you. The one major down fall of everything that is happening is that Policy gets drowned out. As much as I think the Dirty Polotics, GCSB information is important and should rightfully influence voters, in the end people need to know policy to make an informed decision as to who to vote for.
To be honest, I actually think that knowing a political party is honest or not is more important than their policies.
true. If they might be lying, then their policies are worthless.
Actually the first part was to point out National’s policy is almost non existant. I thought that was pretty clear.
Unfortunately because of all the coverage of the admitidly important revelations I mentioned there has been very little coverage of the poilicies from other parties. As someone who voted IMP yesterday I would have liked a little more information around the differences between them and say the Greens. If the wider public are shifting away from the NAT’s and their corrupt practices it allows them to make a more informed decision about which party they want to vote for. We can’t just assume they would all vote Labour.
The honesty of the NAT’s only discredits them. It doesn’t help you decide which of the other parties you will vote for. Policy does.
So worrying about the nat’s policies being the size of a postage stamp is pretty irrelevant, if they’ve already been shown up as dishonest.
Which is more important: covering the blatant lying of our pm, or covering the policy manifestos of half a dozen other parties? I reckon that those who are interested in policy would find it themselves, e.g. party websites, but those who are more interested in character issues and baby-kissing photos will rely 100% on the msm.
Why does it have to be one or the other. My point the whole time is that they are both important. I could equally argue that those who care about Dirty Politics could go and read the book.
Not sure how you can dismiss the importance of defining the difference between parties especially on the left where we have a plethora of choice. With out clear communication of those poicies through an easily accessable medium those moving away from the NAT’s are just as likely to tick the Conservative box as say Winston Peter’s and not understand that not only will that lead to a whole lot fo crazy but it will also help return the NAT’s to power.
It’s all well and good for those who can be bothered taking the time to go and read up on different polocies. However for the large number of people who form their opinioin’s from the MSM (and they are the ones we want to influence with the coverage of Dirty Politics) they will also make their choice on change based on what they hear in the MSM.
it’s not “one or the other”, the issue is relative importance.
I don’t kjnow I care about the contents of a book if I haven’t read the book – it could be bunk for all I know, or misleading title/cover.
If I care about preschool access or water quality, I know to try to find policy on it.
And frankly, people who care more about character are likely to switch off the msm if it ignores character for policy descriptions.
It’s about trust and ethics, which are at the core of the contract between the electorate and the elected. If we cannot trust our representatives, then it doesn’t matter what the hell their policies are.
Perhaps you could take this up with the MSM. One day in the last three weeks the front page lead of a major daily, story covering the full page was ” a story and a picture (which I didn’t want to look at as being too gruesome) of somebody who had had their face bitten by a dog” which I am sure was horrible and painful. But this story and others like it occupied the front page quite consisitently over the whole period. NAct had no policy that they could discuss perhaps?
Here are some questions for Clare Curran (Labour IT spokes person at the time) who seemed to know that unauthorized changes made to the software handling the Sydney side of the Southern Cross cable crashed the internet connection for NZ on 9 October 2012.
If you want to do it yourself you might want to copy past this in your twitter message box en tweet it to them:
@clarecurranmp @DavidCunliffeMP @nzlabour What did Clare Curran know about the SC Cable outage on 9 Nov 2012 http://wp.me/p638n-4tX
Question for Lynn: How likely is it that unauthorized software changes can be made without notification by an unauthorized individual in what is the only connection of NZ to the rest of the world?
I thought it weird that that article on the outage quoted Curran so much when she was in opposition. I don’t think there was any comment from the govt.
key on breakfast tvone:..
“..we can’t just go and look..we have to get a warrant to go into that database..’
..question:..which/what ‘database’..?
..the one that snowden detailed accessing from hawaii..?
..(has key involuntarily admitted something here..?..)
Ah the house of cards is crumbling. I think the meme is now gently shifting to “it’s only surveillance if you look at the information – not if you just collect it’.
With more to come from Greenwald and even Craig talking about issues of trust Slippery is possibly having his last slither.
Whatever the outcome on Saturday Key is now, and will increasingly become, severely damaged goods.
i think you can further synthesise it down to:
..we don’t collect it..they do…
..and re yr ‘damaged-goods’ comment..
..should the unthinkable happen..and key get back in..
..it will be open warfare from day one..
..he will have the shortest political-honeymoon period on record..
Honeymoon long over. He will be a lame duck shitting bricks everyday for fear something else will come out. And he knows he is in Government on borrowed time! Can’t be nice. Looks like Winston Peters is a real alternative for those who hate labor and green but want to breakaway from National’s poisoned well and who don’t want to kowtow to the International Corps by signing the TTPA.
as in, I break into your house and steal your television. ekshully, at the end of the day, it’s not stolen until I turn it on.
Clever
Rodel – I want to hear about other parties policy you said.
Look up Other parties policy of the web?
They all have it laid out, as update as you can get.
NZ First has a very good policy on regional rail if you are interested better than every other party.
“Rails of National significance”
They have very well thought out policies.
I am Labour but fringe NZF and Green, so good combination we think.
the policy-comparison that has me gobsmacked..(and perhaps distills my disquiet at/with labour..)
..is that the twenty grand tax-free policy of rightwing-nutjob/moon-landing-denier craig..
..would do more for the childless-poor..
..than anything labour has on offer..
..which is exactly diddly-fucken-squat..
(when pressed cunnliffe said a ‘financial surplus’ was more important for labour..than any idea of raining benefit rates at all..)
..and so..the poorest of the poor..will just be left to rot by labour..again..
..’far-right party does more for the poor than labour’
..(how is that for a headline..?..)
..anyone with strong beliefs/desires to right those wrongs..
..must look past labour..
..to internet/mana and the greens..
..labour is still too in the thrall of its’ neo-libbers..
.none of whom have ever cared very much for the poor..
(ahem..!..’raising’ benefit rates..not ‘raining’..
Local Kiwi – Thanks I do know the policies. I am committed t o Cunliffe and Labour and have ticked Labour twice..no question.
I want to HEAR the politicians and their policies not for me but because the wavering voters are the ones who need to hear them….free doctors visits for over 65s and kids…raising the Minimum wage…preventing the sale of further assets… shutting John Banks’ s ridiculous charter schools…re-establishing a public TV channel..etc etc.
Most people know the Key corporation is deceitful but the positive Labour and Greens..(grudgingly he said) policies and Winston’s ideas are getting submersed in the high profile scandals about John Key.
Incidentally, nice to hear that 10% of voters (300,000 or so have already voted- Big turnout augurs well for the left.
Definition of Mass surveillance:
I would like to hear the unequivocal positions of all parties as to their definition of mass surveillance.
Do they define mass surveillance as (a) capturing and storing data without the permission of the private citizen?, or (b) do they not consider that to be surveillance until they look at that information?
It is clear that the Sleazy Dirty Politics Party is hoping to redefine mass surveillance as in (b) above.
Political Response to Mass surveillance
The Sleazy Dirty Politics Party will obviously stay in the Five Evil Eyes Axis
David Cunliffe has indicated that the Labour Party will also stay in the FEEA
Is there any party of decency remaining?
I’ve possibly been too harsh on Labour:
“Labour will repeal and replace the GCSB law after an independent inquiry in to New Zealand’s intelligence services”
Still a niggling doubt. Why has David Cunliffe also said that Labour will stay in the Axis? Surely that position should follow the inquiry above
Brian, for what it’s worth, David Cunliffe spoke at a public talk about the TICS Bill last year in August on your point:
“Labour will repeal and replace the GCSB law after an independent inquiry in to New Zealand’s intelligence services”.
He spoke at length and spoke with conviction about NZer’s right to privacy. He was sincerely and strongly opposed to the government mass spying on its citizens. Its hard to imagine however that a Labour govt will throw out intelligence sharing relationships NZ has had with allies post WW2 but we can only hope the way in which they operate will be part of the review.
As for your last question at 14. Didn’t Dotcom say the Internet Party would take one eye out of the five eyes alliance? (or did I imagine that?)
It is unlikely that New Zealand can influence the four big eyes in the Axis to dump their desires to continue with mass surveillance.
So the question will be for all New Zealanders whether we want to continue with intelligence sharing relationships we have had with allies since WW2, if the price of that intelligence is that we have to accept mass surveillance.
You say it is hard to imagine that Labour will want to stop the relationship. Which I agree with, since I have heard Cunliffe say (sorry cannot recall source) that Labour would stay with Five eyes.
It looks like an important point of differentiation between Labour and their possible coalition partners. From your comment above, I am pleased that the Internet Party may be willing to remove an eye, and say so now. The Green Party have also been very concerned about surveillance issues, although I do not know what they are thinking about continuing with 5 eyes.
It’s an issue that I wish to resolve before I vote. What I desire is a party that can provide a clear assurance that mass surveillance will not be tolerated, and that NZ will not participate in any alliance if the price for that alliance is Orwellian.
How safe is National Radio?
Maori Television is now feeling the effect of publishing stories that do not suit the spin of the Sleazy Dirty Politics Party.
John Key already will front up to National Radio (presumably fearing Guyon Espiner) as little as possible?
In this climate, how safe is National Radio from being “restructured” so that Guyon Espiner will no longer have a job (sending a message to all others), if the Sleazy Dirty Politics Party gets another term in Parliament?
espiner is an admitted rightwinger..
..in part he was chosen for that reason..
..by the rightwinger griffin who runs nat-rad..
I really miss Geoff Robinson on RadioNZ. He had a quiet dignity, and could ask questions.
Compelling summary by lawyer Denis Tegg with graphics on the issues of mass surveillance…questions to be asked now… and time for John key to come clean:
‘GUEST BLOG – Denis Tegg – The NSA slides that prove mass surveillance’
By The Daily Blog / September 17, 2014
“The evidence presented by Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden on The Intercept of mass surveillance of New Zealanders by the GCSB is undeniable, and can stand on its own….
– See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/09/17/guest-blog-denis-tegg-the-nsa-slides-that-prove-mass-surveillance/#sthash.uq22KklT.dpuf
Kicking the boot into the Poor.
News today. WINZ is closing regional offices, such as the one in Raglan
The Heartless Sleazy Dirty Politics Party (HSDPP) now expects those without work to have to pay to travel to Hamilton to a WINZ office.
If they cannot afford the travel, presumably they will lose the benefit they are entitled to; and the HSDPP will be able to trumpet that the number of people receiving the benefit is less under their watch. Do they care about poverty? The HSDPP must have been the only group in New Zealand who smiled and saw an “opportunity” from the Ashburton tragedy.
Oh Goodie! Expect more crime, more despair, more alcohol and violence. Poor Rags. I live near it. They just want people to move out of small places into the big cities. This is just pure Agenda 21 shit.
In Kawhia you don’t even get the dole if you live there because they say you clearly are not interested in a job if you want to live there. Never mind the family breakups, more lack of family support.
You poor? You rot in a burp in old leaky cold houses if you’re lucky without any hope for the future or a family life.
“In Kawhia you don’t even get the dole if you live there because they say you clearly are not interested in a job if you want to live there. Never mind the family breakups, more lack of family support. “
Kawhia is a beautiful place… wonder how much of that restriction is based on “why should the unemployed live in such an area of natural beauty when I have to work in the urban jungle?”
Sustainable regional development is required – imagine how local economies can be supported by those on benefits spending their money there instead of on high rentals in forced moves to cities.
A ridiculous policy in terms of long-term benefits to people and communities.
An unemployed person has to live somewhere while they are looking for a job. If whanau are in Kawhia, that would seem a good place to stay temporarily. I’m reading from your comment, that the same thing will happen for those who live in Raglan.
New policy. “If you are unemployed and wish a benefit, you will be required to live within walking distance of any WINZ office that has not yet closed”
I wish more emphasis was placed on the carrot and not the stick
Agree.
And how much further the benefit would go in terms of providing the basics of life, and the opportunity to make changes if you are not required to live in an overpriced, unhealthy rental in a city where you don’t have a support system?
brian, what source are you quoting from?
My apology: Where I wrote “New Policy ….If you are….” I did not make it clear that this was not a serious comment. I should have. The quotation marks invited your reasonable query.
thanks, i suspected it was ‘paraphrasing’ an idea and was not an actual statement but thought it best to clarify.
Don’t want the concern tr_lls skim reading and mis-quoting 😎
Oh, FFS*, Agenda 21 is a voluntary code for societies and nations to follow to become sustainable. It includes combating poverty. As such I think we can assume that what National is doing is completely against Agenda 21 as they’re increasing poverty.
National probably see small communities as a cost on everyone else and thus they seek to get rid of them to further lower taxes. This is completely delusional but that does seem to describe National accurately.
* I get really fucked off with this conspiracy theory BS that’s been spread by, as far as I can make out, the Koch Brothers. Being sustainable does mean not using oil any more and the Koch Brothers do produce a lot of oil.
There’s a whole load more to A21 than simply sustainability DtB 🙂 Sustainability is the Trojan Horse to make it palatable.. (And I think all of us would agree with the virtue of sustainability).
Well then, you should be able to point out where it’s all a conspiracy to have an unelected few ruling the world.
That’s not what I said DtB 🙂
You haven’t actually said what you mean and yet every time I’ve seen the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory mentioned that’s what’s meant.
That is probably because I haven’t referred to Agenda 21 as a “conspiracy theory”. It’s very real and relates to significantly more than simply “sustainability”. IMO a good video on the topic is here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GykzQWlXJs and it’s also worth reading Gro Harlem Brundtland’s book “Our Common Future” which was the precursor to Agenda 21. Your mileage may of course vary.
Disclaimer – I fully support the notion of “sustainable” development and living within our environmental means and that resources are finite. I don’t support A21 as the embodiment of this however 🙂
I do too. If anyone reads the actual Agenda 21 documents, they’re pretty innocuous. For those who rely on Alex Jones, it’s the scariest thing since chemtrails.
If anyone relies on Alex Jones as the sole arbiter of truth they have bigger issues than either Agenda 21 OR chemtrails 🙂
“If they cannot afford the travel, presumably they will lose the benefit they are entitled to;”
Pretty sure WINZ has an obligation to ensure access. So if someone can’t travel, then WINZ need to make their service accessible in another way eg by email/ph, or by sending a staffer to the area. Of course WINZ staffers will tell beneficiaries that the bene has to travel, but this should be challengeable.
Where is Jason Ede?
National in trouble, time to call in Super Paula with a distraction, only don’t think it will work this time. What with the election so close and all that.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/policies/10508263/Nats-promise-cut-to-benefit-numbers
No,no,no. It’s alright. Franny has said that ‘john key wins’ and has kept his integrity intact. So it’s on to the final debate (which key will triumph in of course) and business as usual. I was never aware that he has any integrity.
If facebook likes were votes:
https://www.facebook.com/bretthudson.national
Vs.
https://www.facebook.com/virginia.andersen.ohariu
and if Stuff votes were real:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10507529/Dunne-gets-the-nod-from-Nationals-candidate
We’d have a new MP for Ohariu come Saturday………………..
Fingers crossed and prayers said Rosie. Keep up the good work!
+100 Rosie…good luck!
Notice how Hudson talks about places while Virginia talks about people.
Things V People. Go Virginia and perhaps offer that jaded looking Pete a cup of coffee or something.
Yes, there is a big difference between Brett Hudson and Ginny Andersen. Notice how Hudson mainly puts up Natz terrible empty policy (eg slave labour in prisons) and talks very little about the electorate on his fb and you’re right Ginny Andersen is very people focused, and in a genuine way.
He has referred several times to his the positive feedback he is getting about the Nat govt, when door knocking but that is all. I’m sure he is only focusing on the safe wealthier looking suburbs lol. Not a peep about the poverty in the community which Ginny has covered well.
What he hasn’t said is how he has been literally laughed out loud at, at several candidates meetings (he didn’t go down well at the one I went to) and that he’s out early every morning checking damage to his hoardings.
FYI
17 September 2014
URGENT : Request for an Inquiry by the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, Cheryl Gwyn – re matters arising from the Snowden GCSB/ NSA ‘revelations’.
Dear Inspector-General,
Yesterday, I emailed the following URGENT ‘Open Letter/ OIA request to NZ Prime Minister John Key regarding questions arising from the Edward Snowden GCSB/ NSA ‘revelations’:
I have yet to even have an emailed acknowledgment of receipt of this urgent correspondence.
In order for the public to have confidence in both the NZ Prime Minister, and the NZ Intelligence and Security services, in my opinion, we need to know that we have not been lied to regarding the mass surveillance of New Zealand citizens.
Please conduct an urgent inquiry into the following questions that I have asked of the Prime Minister, as you are empowered to do under s.11 (1) (b) (i) of the ‘Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1996:
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1996/0047/latest/DLM392526.html
11Functions of Inspector-General
(1)Subject to the provisions of this Act, the functions of the Inspector-General shall be—
(a)to inquire, of the Inspector-General’s own motion or at the request of the Minister, into any matter that relates to the compliance by an intelligence and security agency with the law of New Zealand:
(b)to inquire into any complaint by—
(i)a New Zealand person; or
(ii)a person who is an employee or former employee of an intelligence and security agency,—
that that person has or may have been adversely affected by any act, omission, practice, policy, or procedure of an intelligence and security agency:
(ba)to inquire into any complaint made by the Speaker of the House of Representatives on behalf of 1 or more members of Parliament:
(c)to inquire at the request of the Minister or the Prime Minister or of the Inspector-General’s own motion into any matter where it appears that a New Zealand person has been or may be adversely affected by any act, omission, practice, policy, or procedure of an intelligence and security agency:
(ca)to inquire at the request of the Minister or the Prime Minister or of the Inspector-General’s own motion into the propriety of particular activities of an intelligence and security agency:
(d)without limiting paragraph (a), to review at intervals of not more than 12 months—
(i)the effectiveness and appropriateness of the procedures adopted by each intelligence and security agency to ensure compliance with its governing legislation in relation to the issue and execution of warrants and authorisations; and
(ii)the effectiveness and appropriateness of compliance systems concerning operational activity, including all supporting policies and practices of an intelligence and security agency relating to—
(A)administration; and
(B)information management; and
(C)risk management; and
(D)legal compliance generally:
(da)to conduct unscheduled audits of the procedures and compliance systems described in paragraph (d):
(e)to prepare and submit to the Minister from time to time for his or her approval programmes for the general oversight and review of each intelligence and security agency and for the discharge by the Inspector-General, in relation to each intelligence and security agency, of the particular functions specified in this section:
(f)to carry out any programme or amended programme or substituted programme approved by the Minister under paragraph (e).
(2)[Repealed]
(3)In carrying out any inquiry in accordance with the provisions of subsection (1)(ca), it shall not be a function of the Inspector-General to inquire into any action taken by the Minister.
(4)Except to the extent strictly necessary for the performance of his or her functions under subsection (1), the Inspector-General shall not inquire into any matter that is operationally sensitive, including any matter that relates to intelligence collection and production methods or sources of information.
(5)The Inspector-General shall not conduct an inquiry into a complaint made under subsection (1) by an employee or former employee of an intelligence and security agency unless—
(a)all established internal remedies have been exhausted; or
(b)the employee or former employee and the chief executive of the relevant intelligence and security agency otherwise agree in writing.
(6)Where an inquiry has been conducted by the Inspector-General following a complaint, the Inspector-General may make such recommendations for the redress of that complaint as the Inspector-General thinks fit (including remedies that involve the payment of compensation).
__________________________________________
16 September 2014
‘Open Letter/ OIA request to NZ Prime Minister John Key regarding questions arising from the Edward Snowden GCSB/ NSA ‘revelations’
Dear Prime Minister,
Under the ‘urgency’ and ‘public interest’ provisions of the NZ Official Information Act, please provide answers to the following by 5pm Thursday 18 September 2014:
Please provide the following information that explains:
1) Why did you inform the public that the GCSB Amendment Bill would not lead to an expansion of powers when at the same time you were planning the Speargun mass surveillance initiative?
2) Why was phase one of the Speargun project completed if it was, as you have claimed, something that never made it past the “business case”?
3) Why New Zealanders were not informed about the Cortex project until the NZ Government’s hand was forced by disclosures based on documents from Snowden?
4) How much data is collected on a daily basis by GCSB under the Cortex project, and how does the agency ensure this data does not “incidentally” include the content or metadata of citizens’ communications?
5) What technology is this, referred to in the Cortex documents, that “has been around for some time”?
6) Is any information collected by GCSB under Cortex — or any other program that accesses internet data — shared with the NSA and/or other Five Eyes agencies through systems such as XKEYSCORE?
7) Does GCSB have access to XKEYSCORE and, if so, for how long has this been the case?
8) Does GCSB use its access to internet data streams — under initiatives like Cortex or similar — to launch active/offensive cyber operations that involve hacking computer systems to collect information?
9) When will you declassify documents detailing the Speargun project and showing that it was not completed?
_________________________________________________________
Please be advised that I have based this OIA request upon information contained in the following article:
“THE QUESTIONS FOR NEW ZEALAND ON MASS SURVEILLANCE”
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/15/questions-new-zealand-mass-surveillance/
I believe that these are fair questions to which the New Zealander voting public need true and accurate answers.
Yours sincerely,
Penny Bright
………………………
Cool story Penny
Zzzzzz TLDR
Wall of text. Get your own blog!!
Key’s reputation is more important than NZ’s foreign relations or trade. That’s why he had to declassify top secret documents. Irresponsible fuckwit
I think his declassifying secret documents to save his own skin is what will ultimately finish him. Those documents were either 1) made secret to hide what Key was doing from New Zealand or 2) made secret for the safety of New Zealand, and so to release them to save his own political reputation is treasonous. Either way, he cannot stay as Prime MInister. Everyone has been looking for the smoking gun that will finally incriminate Key, but I think that decision he took to release those documents was him pulling the trigger on his own political demise.
Agreed, this is a rushed move with desperation written all over it. A new low from the dirtiest PM in living memory.
The smoking gun has been there since at least 2008.
Yes DTB, it has always been clear that Key is a liar out to line his own pockets. The National voters seem to understand and respect that for some reason only known to themselves. But Key has now stepped over the line into behavior that is treasonous, and that is a very different story.
If only….
Why have the Main Stream Media not published the last information given to them by Whaledump?
Why is their inaction being forgotten?
Why did Whaledump not dump his final dump to the public in the same way that previous information was dumped?
Why has Whaledump not been resurrected to rectify the disappointing response of the Media?
This election campaign has exposed the sorry state of New Zealand journalism. We once could expect our journalists to provide accurate reporting of events, regardless of their own political views. (We still can for a few journalists)
We now have far too many ‘Media Stars’ who appear to believe that they are more important than their stories. I do not want media stars giving patsy questions to the politicians they favour. I want information. And credibility (for both ‘Media Star’ and politician) that can only come from searching and thoughtful questions. And I certainly do not want, what appears to be Whaledump censorship.
..@ brian..
..+ 1..
Hear, hear.
A MUST LISTEN with great relevance to foreign companies buying up New Zealand land eg Goldman Sachs
In her new book, Expulsions, Columbia University sociology professor Saskia Sassen offers a chilling analysis of the dynamics shaping the global economy, including their effects of income inequality, expanding populations of the displaced, and accelerating destruction of land and water bodies.
Dr Sassen has led several multi-year projects into the forces of globalisation, and says technological and economic advances of our time have seen a sharp growth in the number of people expelled from the core social and economic orders.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/20149953/how-global-economic-forces-increase-disparity
http://www.kontext-tv.de/broadcast/10102013/saskia-sassen-expulsion/land-grabbing
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/saskia-sassen/
(Thankyou to Kathryn Ryan for this interview)
Today’s Nine till Noon interview on ‘minority government’ certainly covered a lot of ground but yet again the content of the interview raised obvious questions that never get addressed.
eg: If [National] try to form a minority Government without fixed partners and/or C&S agreements and they ask the Governor General to allow a confidence vote in the House, should MP’s/Parties have a right to abstain on that vote?
To continue the Judge/Jury analogy that was being framed – where the GG is the Judge and the newly elected MPs are the Jury – ask yourself, are Jurors allowed to abstain from making a verdict decision? No! So why should Members of our Parliament be allowed to abstain when deciding who will govern?
A very sad indictment on what NZ has become
https://nz.news.yahoo.com/opinion/post/-/blog/25003999/our-worst-fears-proven-true/
Russell Brown’s interview with Glenn Greenwald today in Public Address is worth reading. Looks like it was GG’s request that KDC not talk about his email, as it would distract from the spying issues.
I think Mr Greenwald underestimated how much our media had fallen. How our media love the story to be about themselves. And how much our media are partisan hacks. With a few, too few, exceptions.
@ adam..
..+ 1..
The interview.
Duncan garner and 3rd degree tonight interview former dotcom employees with nothing nice to say…
Key and Joyce must be due to call tv3 out for focusing on non policy issues…
Apparently interviewing KDC, too. This sort of programme, bound to have been in the pipeline for a while, shows why it was good sense to separate the Greenwald-Snowden MoT from KDC’s issues.
I’m no fan of the guy: don’t expect him to come across as Mr Nice Guy.
Which puts a bit of a lie to the notion they were all just paid patsies of dotcom
I’m not expecting much from this evening’s debate. 30 minutes (22 after ads), with around 5 minutes being opening and closing remarks. Another few minutes being Hosking blathering on. It will be full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
It’s supposed to be about coalition partners and forming the government, so Hosking is likely to ask Key about his plans to cause a constitutional crises by trying to form a government without a majority in Parliament.
Things aren’t looking too good for the worlds second largest ice sheet.
This year, Greenland’s ice sheet was the darkest Box (or anyone else) has ever measured. Box gives the stunning stats: “In 2014 the ice sheet is precisely 5.6 percent darker, producing an additional absorption of energy equivalent with roughly twice the US annual electricity consumption.”
Perhaps coincidentally, 2014 will also be the year with the highest number of forest fires ever measured in Arctic.
[…]
Earlier this year, Box made headlines for a strongly worded statement along these lines:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/09/16/jason_box_s_research_into_greenland_s_dark_snow_raises_more_concerns_about.html
What an ‘on-to-it’ (not) guy is John Key ! Snowden “may well be right” now.
Anyone get the feeling that Key changes his tune and his tone according to directives from far away ? Which is the whole troubling point ‘akshilly’.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11326387
The question late last week was
Are loads of NZers being spied upon
?..
If you follow his answers through to today we have now reached
Yes
But in such a way the media can pretend he didnt.
I have become so disillusioned and cynical by the mans lies, that after reading that headline, my next thought is that if he’s conceding to that one there must be something even worse being hidden from us now 🙁
Dear Prime Minister,
Does the Five Eyes Alliance have the ability to fix on-line lotteries ?
If so, could you please put in a good word for me for this weekend ?
Regards,
Raa.
http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-03/wp_quant?currentPage=all
http://archive.fortune.com/2008/09/30/magazines/fortune/varchaver_derivatives_short.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008093012
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.co.nz/2008/09/dallas-federal-reserve-bank-president.html
http://www.3news.co.nz/politics/national-promises-25-pct-less-beneficiaries-2014091709
So now we know why Paula Bennett was dishing out all the hugs and sickly sweet comments in Ashburton a few days ago…. she was just softening up staff for her next jackboot onslaught.
Typically cynical of a woman with the ethics of an alley cat.
My god she’s had the Shipley make over! So factionional warfare has broken out in National. Long may it last.
I’ve met alley cats – believe me, they’ve got more ethics.
Marcus Lush compares and contrasts Labour vs National campaign meeting in Mangere and Mt Albert.
Both Labour and National leaders were in Auckland over the weekend: On Saturday, Marcus Lush took a trip to Mangere to see David Cunliffe appear before party supporters and media, while on Sunday, John Key appeared at a daycare centre in Mount Albert.
Here’s how each event went.
http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Marcus-Lush-on-the-hustings-Comparing-Labour-in-Mangere-with-National-in-Mount-Albert/tabid/439/articleID/54777/Default.aspx
Wow, that was good – thanks for that Clem
You are welcome. The National’s ‘clinical’ approach made me laugh! Those poor little kids were brought to school on a Sunday morning, (Yes, Sunday!) like for a quiet respectful funeral service conducted by their holiness, King Key and patron saint of kids, Paula Bennett! What a disgrace!
Armstrong – what is this increasingly shrill wishful thinking from New Zealand’s premier GodKey shill ? Sure ain’t journalism. This from the “time to resign – 11 year old form letter” man:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/john-armstrong/news/article.cfm?a_id=3&objectid=11325925
Amongst all the sleaze and covers up from National I wonder if anyone who knows how too has checked on the Conservatives election expensives .The huge post office delivery expense must be very big.The Cons seem to be spending money nonstop. Their election bill needs to be explained.
xox
With all this spying ( information hoovering) capacity, surely the head spy knows the game is over, and his master’s will tell him so. The high priest has been defrocked.
Latest roy morgan poll is out
Again, still too close to call. National-led Government: National Party, Maori Party, ACT NZ, United Future on 49% (up from 46.5% in August 31 poll)
Opposition Parties: Labour Party, Green Party, Internet-Mana Party alliance, NZ First; down to 46.5 (from 49% in August 31 poll)
Nothing more than an old switcherooni.
National is up 1.5
Labour down 2
Greens down 2.5
NZ1st up 2
Maori Party up 1
No real change for everyone else.
Even so, based on those numbers, assuming Dunne is gone from Ohariu, and even with Seymour in Epsom, it still leaves National short. Have assumed conservatives get 4.5% and are out of parliament. The percentage signs relate to the party vote gained on the day.
I am worried that Labour will get less overall, particularly as the weather on the day is shaping up to be nasty.
I have modified the results as RM is usually out by a little bit (not much) so figures are my predictions on what the votes are likely to be on the date.
ACT New Zealand 1.50% 2 MPs (1 electorate + 1.5% PV)
Green Party 16.00% 21 MPs (no electorates)
Internet MANA 2.00% 3 MPs (1 electorate +2% PV)
Labour Party 26.00% 34 MPs (29 Electorates+ 5 list)
Māori Party 1.00% 2 Mps (2 electorates)
National Party 39.00% 50 Mps (37 electorates + 13 list)
New Zealand First Party 7.00% 9 Mps (no electorates)
121 seats total.
Using the numbers:
National + Act + MP = 54 seats
Even if Dunne gets in, that still only gives them 55 seats
Labour + Green + NZ1st = 64 seats, if Dunne gets in, that makes it 63 seats for the left block. I have factored in the probability of Ginny winning Ohariu.
I can’t see Winston wanting to be part of a four headed monster, or even in a Nat+NZ1+Act/MP/Dunne configuration.
However, If National got 42% and Labour got 23% on Saturday in their respective party votes (n/c to electorates won), then the left block would likely need IMP to be part of a formal coalition, or in a confidence and supply arrangement.
Other alternative is that Lab+Grn+NZ1 combined on a 60 seat bloc in 121 seat parliament could run a minority government.
A national+act+uf+mp bloc is only 58 seats in a 121 seat parliament.
I haven’t done any configurations with Conservatives as I believe people will shy away from them at the last minute and switch to Winsome Winnie instead of Crazy Colon.
Overall conclusion? This election is coming down to the wire.
You’re not taking in to account the traditional 3-4% swing left in the actual voting (even with Roy Morgan being the most accurate). Take in to account that and the high volatility this time and I think National have to be very worried.
Zorr – I have taken it into account. I’ve attributed more of the left swing to IMP and Greens rather than to Labour.
The final Roy Morgan poll before the last election had Labour at 23.5% but they actually got 27.5%. The Greens were overestimated by 3% however.
Yep, if this poll is like the one taken before the last election, the only difference between this poll and the actual election would be that the right bloc had 2% less on the day. So National probably on 44%, Labour + Greens + NZFirst on 46% at the moment. It is going to be very close.
What about the undecideds?
Your optimism is appreciated.
Here’s hoping the TV3 one tonight has a similar trend.
The TV3 poll was off by quite a bit last time. This is a useful graph, it shows the final polls from the different polling companies and the actual election result
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/4726-new-zealand-2011-election-accuracy-201312032254
You have given National 39%…based on what?
Yes James but National in 2011 last RM poll = 49.5
2011 election result = 47.31
last Rm poll 2014 = 46.5
John Key is trying to discredit Snowden’s information by calling him a ‘hacker’.
“Edward Snowden hacked into the NSA. He downloaded illegally millions of documents, some of which related to New Zealand.”
Which is a gross misrepresentation of what happened. He was an NSA contractor with high level clearance, he didn’t need to hack into them.
FFS are there any journalists in this country who aren’t happy to let Key just make shit up like this?
This is good though. Key and his team being tied up having to make shit up that looks a big credible, instead of being out there campaigning.
What you said about the MSM +1000 There seem to be a few that are getting it right this week. I assume he is avoiding them.
Damn, Laila has me wanting to vote IMP again,
Laila Harré @lailaharre 2 hrs
#InternetMANA will make #TPPA a top target in post-election negs. Party vote for certainty on where we will stand: http://bit.ly/1mcHC5l
https://internet.org.nz/news/89
Blimming heck! What on earth is Soper on. On prime, giving Cunliffe grief for not turning up to some tinpot radio station wanting to know “is Cunliffe serious about wanting to lead the country” Has anybody heard if key is going to debate the whole hour as Cunliffe has requested??
Exactly my thoughts. Any shit these right wing turds can throw at the left they will do. Did you see Armstrong’s heap of shit today along with Frankfurter’s? Do they honestly believe the crap they write or are they, just like Soper insulting our intelligence or taking the piss.
Cunliffe didn’t request it, TVNZ did. Cunliffe said yes, Key said no.
And we know why. 30mins with ads is fk all time each. Not enough to cover all the issues, and 5 eyes.
@ floyd..
..on a day when key admits there is mass-surveillance of nz’ers..barry ‘i’m barry soper..!..and i know s.f.a..!’ soper..the political editor of sky news..
..chooses to run with a cunnliffe hatchet-job..
..he really is one of the worst..that soper…
..such a craven tory lackey/lickspittle..
Advance voting looks like it’ll comprise over a third of total votes this election. The running total blew past the 2008 numbers on Monday, and 2011 yesterday:
http://www.elections.org.nz/events/2014-general-election/advance-voting-statistics
It looks set to top 410,000 tonight. In 2008 51% of advance votes were cast in the final three day period, in 2011 that was 55%. I predict that the total advance vote will be over 800 000, and if we treat the 2011 proportion as predictive then the total would be 40% of the 2011 total vote. Though I think that the total vote will be up this time too, so the advance vote proportion of that will be around 35%.
A key advantage of advance voting is that you are less susceptible to caging-list strategies that have been employed in the US as a key part of dirty political strategy. There is a nationwide need for scrutineers to monitor the advance count (downside; you’ll be locked in from 1:30-7pm with no phone access, upside; that’s shorter than the 9am-9pm that polling station scutineers are expected to stick around, and there’s only one required per party per electorate, as opposed to the dozens of polling stations). If you haven’t planned to contribute to the election day in any other way yet, this might be something to consider (get in touch with your favoured party and offer your time – the candidate has to sign off on it).
Re the polls………….not sure what this means but did some figures when the Roy Morgan came out today.
2011 RM last poll before election Result 2011…………..Last RM poll before 2014
Nat 49.5 47.31 46.5
Lab 23.5 27.48 24.00
Green 14.5 11.06 13.5
NZ 1st 6.59 6.59 8
UF .6 .6 .5
Maori 1.4 1.43 .5
Mana 1 1 (IMP)
Cons 2.65 2.65 3.5
Act 1.5 1.07 .5
Not sure what this all means, except Nats down 3% from last RM poll and then down 2% in actual election. Will check to make sure got figures right. Sorry didn’t get Mana’s actual election result.
National stuffed in 3news poll. 44.5% Labour 25.6 Greens 14.4 Winston 7.
(Conservatives 4.9%!!!)
how does that make National stuffed?
Because National will probably poll 2% lower and the Conservatives with end up scraping together just over 4%.
does that mean you believe that ACT, UF and Mp will be gone from parliament?
you would then also need to believe that Peters won’t go with National.
http://dimpost.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/brief-winston-peters-predictions-for-the-record ;-(
ACT UF and MP may all get one MP in each, but with Key scraping together 54 National MP’s himself, what is he going to do with them?
And you are right this is pivotal – but I reckon there’s no way in hell. (Fingers crossed…)
“no way/fingers crossed”
lolz, 🙁
CV’s on to it, weka. Last election, this poll had the Nats on 50.8% (3% higher than the actual result). Labour 26% (down 1.5%). Even if the overestimation is narrower this time, Key can’t form a Government without NZF on these numbers. No other option.
They also showed what would happen if Craycray sneaks in. Again, no show without Winnie (and ACT, MP, UF). The dreaded 5 headed monster!
Try running it through the calculator. I just put those TV3 figures in but adjusted down to CV’s figures for National and Craig, and it looks like National and Peters can form govt with no-one else.
please check my figures though
and either way, how is National stuffed when they can still use Peters?
True enough, weka. But why would Winnie go with National? NZF’s entire policy package (except Laura Norder) is a close fit with Labour’s. And I’m picking the opportunity to knock Key off his perch would be irresistible to a man with a big ego and a bitter memory of 3 years in the wilderness.
Et tu Winstus?
Two words: Green Party.
Or one word: bauble.
On the other hand, Labour are quite capable of shafting the GP again and allowing Peters to force a L/NZF govt with C and S from the Greens.
Harsh description of the process on that occasion, and it wasn’t a L/NZF government anyway. NZF only gave C&S as I recall. The Greens did the same.
ok, leaving the past in the past, do you think that Labour would let a party on 7% dictate that a party on 13% couldn’t be part of govt inside cabinet?
That’s actually not quite as bad as the 2005 situation, weka! Back then, NZF and UF would not support the Greens getting any kind of cabinet posting at all. For mine, I’m not fussed. Probably the same for the Greens, too. They know they will get more policy wins under a Labour led Government, in it or out of it, so it’s in their interest to give C&S.
It would be a shame, because the Greens are ready for leadership roles, but getting Key gone is the immediate issue.
i agree with trp..
..i have written/warned of the dangers of a vote for peters..
..and i stand by all that..
..but the reality is that he is there..and he will likely hold the balance of power..
..but weighing up all the various factors/imperatives leads me to the conclusion that i wd be very surprised if he decided to prop up this corrupt/mass-surveilling aberration of the party he once belonged to..
great, so he will screw over the GP instead. Can’t wait until the man is gone, MMP will function so much better without him
I think Key is going to try a dodgy constitutional wag the dog trick with his mate Jerry Mateparae.
HERALD: John Key ‘comfortable’ that NSA is not spying on NZ
Comfortable? He must be perched on a cushion the size of the Beehive..
@ inky..
..he has rubber butt-implants..
Greenwald vs the PM on Campbell Live tonight.
stream http://www.3news.co.nz/Video/3NewsLiveStream
“Greenwald vs the PM on Campbell Live tonight.”
Campbell hype. It’s actually just alternating cut and pastes of recaps.
This gem though, when asked which partners have access to the SC cable,
Key “I don’t understand the technical aspects, you’d have to ask the GCSB about that”
Yes. Key, as usual, being very clear on what he (allegedly) knows is not happening, then being fuzzy and passing the buck on crucial points.
Yes. Not a lot that’s new there.
X-Key-Whore-At-The-White-House-Door.
Fuck-Off-New-Zealand !
That’s what it means.
Half time. A theatre worthy of Fauxnews.
cunnliffe has done ok in the final debate..
Key looks like a corpse who hasn’t realised he’s died.
Watching the Cunliffe Key debate. Cunliffe is knowledgeable and competent.
Key full of cliches (‘What I do know…I can say this… the point is…at the end of the day…”.)and a typical money trader…Good at gambling a profit for himself but couldn’t pass economics 101 ( or even high school home economics )
I didn’t watch. Have been reading the tweets. Couldn’t face watching any more of the
liarbambozzler in chief.My gripe: Cunliffe’s voice was not clear enough in the final lap. He seemed to be talking almost inwardly which made his voice come across as muffled. I kept yelling at him (from the sofa) to speak more clearly but he took no notice. 😡
Put yourself in a foreign country without a passport subject to vindictive and subjective innuendo i to would be peeved and slag the natural inhabitant off …..KDC is not all bad nor is he all good he is just a natural human being, who has contributed and his interests are in part shared for change…..I sincerely hope the Scots are left to exercise free will away from the emotions behaviors influences and manipulations..
Hoskings (gritting my teeth) was pretty good.
Cunliife -integrity,, intelligent visionary and super sincere. A man of substance.
Key – less intelligent- lacking vision and mainlining his reptilian insincere cliches.No real substance.
if there was any substance in anything Key said, could the right wingers elucidate? I know I’m biased but was there any sincerity or integrity in Key’s “performance”?
The Hosking – Key – Cunliffe debate was a waste of time.
FFS, if Hosking starts asking about polls and predictions for election night, the answer is not to play his game.
“The people hire, the people fire, the people are in charge on September 20 – not you Mike, not the commentators, but the people. And that’s a great day for democracy Wouldn’t you agree?”
There’s a bunch of votes right there. But sadly … we just got same old insider to insider talk, and the (dwindling) audience wouldn’t have cared.
now..we all know what a pile of putrescent-crap three degrees is..
..2nite they did their hatchet-job on dotcom..
..pathetic..
..that was it..?
..no kitten-murdering..?