I’ll bite –
Must be Keys cause it don’t make any sense.
unless you want it to – then its a charming statement of guileless uncomplicated straight talking which is what this country needs from its leaders.
This should be a wake up call to the Labour leadership. Sleep walking to victory is not going to work. They need to be doing something much more significant than playing guitar and talking about mango skins.
You may be right Socialist Paddy but they got this hit by going pretty hard against Maori over the water rights issue, and getting pretty tough on beneficiaries, again. Not sure the Left has an adequate counter for either of those yet.
Interesting to see Maggie Barrie stepping into the ring.
After Conference National are really emboldened. Apparently there was a great celebrity debate in which Key was mercilessly lampooned, and they all took it in great humour.
2014 is definitely not there for the taking – it is there for forcing out of their cold dead hands.
“they got this hit by going pretty hard against Maori over the water rights issue, and getting pretty tough on beneficiaries, again. Not sure the Left has an adequate counter for either of those yet.”
I don’t suppose they’ve tried sticking up for maori and beneficiaries, have they?
Your are too generous AD. By far.
Perhaps the voters cannot envision Labour winning?
Perhaps the voters cannot see what is different about Labour now from what it was the last time they rejected us?
Nothing. Same team, slightly different face. That is why we are still behind in the polls from where we were in 2008. If you keep doing he same thing, you keep getting the same result.
…they got this hit by going pretty hard against Maori over the water rights issue,
So did the Labour government, if you remember. Helen Clark sneered that she’d rather talk to Shrek the sheep than meet any of the Maori protestors (more than twenty thousand of them) in Wellington. She also got the likes of Trevor Mallard and Clayton Cosgrove to regularly make anti-Maori statements.
and getting pretty tough on beneficiaries, again.
You mean, getting tough on the poor. The rich beneficiaries are being looked after very well indeed. How much tax did they get out of paying in the last three years, I wonder?
Not sure the Left has an adequate counter for either of those yet.
How about: speaking out against bigots like Don (Enoch) Brash instead of panicking every time someone like him stirs up racial animosity? How about speaking out for the poor and oppressed instead of anxiously trying to show how “tough” you can be on them?
Don’t expect any change Paddy, watching labour reminds me of Telecom under Gattung,
She was chosen by the incumbent fat cats to do as they say not what actually was required to grow the business…..unlike Telecom there’s no pot of gold from Joyce waiting for them just minor party oblivion.
Aye TC but when you think back to the leadership campaign and who was supporting Shearer you really have to question the sanity of many in Labour’s caucus.
When right wingers like Slater, Farrar, Tamihere, Matthew Hooton, Michelle Boag and John Tamihere stood up and said that Shearer would be the best leader for Labour they should have smelled a rat and gone for Cunliffe.
And until they get rid of Shearer and co, that’s where it’s going to stay in the doldrums. When are Labour going to realise that the experiment of silence and kissing up to Key does not work. Oh well they are now Nat lite, and not worth voting for. So a lot of non voters from last time are just shrugging their shoulders and saying that they won’t bother to vote next time too. And this time it really is their own fault. And now they want to be able to lock an incompetent in as leader, and make it so that you would have to lever them out with Dynamite and a crow bar. I am sorry, but at the moment they do not deserve the support that they are getting from us, as they are clearly interested in following their own agenda’s and to hell with their supporters.
More than “ä wake up call” is wanted – we have been demanding this for years! Labour requires arousal from a comatose state, a condition that might take long, even for ever!
”This is the first time the New Zealand Roy Morgan poll has measured support for this new party”, unquote,
Perhaps the 3% of support magically appeared for the Conservative Party in the past 2 weeks, or was it there all the time,
3rd option, Roy’s pulling your left one,(with a small rate of success i cannot at the present register as a %),
Riffmatic and stuff aint my strong suit so one of the people what’s brainy in that area might be able to tell us all what would have to happen within a poll for the sudden emergence at 3% of ‘another’ Party,.
What the latest poll smells like from here is a ‘jack up’ pure and simple, the Right simply positioning itself early for the 2014 election where it needs coalition partners on the right with a chance of providing at least 1 extra seat off the back of a donated Electorate seat from National,
Where a % of support may have evaporated from Labour/Green, (they both lost in this poll),is in the bizaare announcement from both Shearer and Norman that they have no plans to buy back the assets now being stolen by National on behalf of it’s 40% support base,
That from both Labour and the Greens after months of protest by opponents of asset sales was a grand kick in the balls and now has me re-considering my voting options…
The rumor in Wellington is that Nationals own polling has them bouncing around on their traditional base 40-42%,
But, Roy Morgan had to move things around a bit in this poll to accommodate the insertion of the Conservative Party for the first time,
For National to Govern after the 2014 election, National themselves know that they are going to need more than Banks and the ‘Hairdo’ + the ‘Poodles’ even if they all keep the seats that they presently hold there’s a 99% chance that none of them will gather further electoral support,
So, in order for it to be viable for National to ‘give away’ another of it’s safe electorate seats there need be every chance that ‘the Party’ it plans on gifting that seat to has every chance,(in the minds of National’s core vote) of bringing at least one more MP into the Parliament riding the coat tails of the gifted National held electoral seat,
With the numbers at where i see them now the Party gifted that seat by National would have to gain at least 2 more seats off of the MMP % of Party votes for the present little jack-up to be of use to them,
The latest Roy Morgan is simply an attempt to facilitate the above,(ie: give a Party with Zilch media attention oxygen), rather than the usual play the margin of error always showing the party’s of the right from the high side of the margin of error while showing the party’s of the left from the low side of that margin of error,
Once they have ensconced ‘the Conservatives’ in the polls as a viable 3%, (to Nationals core vote),and, given that party oxygen and television airtime Roy can go back to business as usual as far as manipulative polls goes….
We can either end up living a life that others expect of us or lives based on our own truth. The difference is the difference between living a conscious life or one that is unconscious. And that’s the difference between living and not living.
The strangest little story is going on in Scotland. Stephen Gough has a mission to walk around naked. Something along the lines of people are good, people are their bodies so bodies are good it’s quite an involved, but at the same time simple realisation for him. So he walks naked. He’s gone from Land’s End to John O’Groats twice. Pyschologically, he’s fine.
The problem is in Scotland he keeps getting arrested for breaching the peace, he defends himself naked, goes to prison naked, and determines to walk out of there naked – then he is promptly arrested again. He wants to walk home to the South of England – naked. The upshot is this has been going on for 6 years. That’s right – 6 years in prison, in virtual solitary confinement, for living his belief that the human body is not offensive and to believe it is isn’t rational. This truth means he walks up and down the country naked.
It appeared that Gough and the Scottish legal system had unwittingly created the perfect legal quandary. How to release a naked man who is in prison for being naked?
The prison management and police came to some agreement and a few days ago he managed to walk from Perth to Dunfermline, where someone complained and he was arrested again, 3 days after leaving prison. Currently he’s waiting for his court date. It appears if he can make it to the English border he’ll be ok because the interpretation of the law is more liberal. In Scotland it’s a theoretical idea that he might cause offense, in England you don’t get arrested unless it actually causes offense to sombody.
he admits to experiencing doubts about his stance. “Yeah, of course. I wake up in the morning and think, what the fuck am I doing here? But what I’m doing isn’t about me. I’m challenging society and it must be challenged because it’s wrong.”
There’s something philosophically pure about this that the legal system, even ones that use actual offense as the criteria for arrest, can’t handle.
But if he was rambling in Europe it’s likely he wouldn’t even get a mention. Not sure how he’d do in New Zealand.
I can admire the sentiment on living a conscious and considered life, looking critically at society. However, I don’t really understand the desire to walk around naked, especially somewhere like Scotland, the north of England, or anywhere in Scotland or England in winter.
The conscious mind is always clothed in language, and the Naked Rambler. needs to explain why he is walking naked to make his point.
Going naked is reactive against society’s norms, and is not proactively living as you want.
The RNZ Morning Report item on the progress of Sue Moroney’s paid parental leave bill yesterday, shows yet again how National is truly the nasty party. it’s the first bill reported on in the Parliament sends three members’ bills to select committee @8.13am.
Sue Goodhew had the gall to criticise Labour for spending recklessly and wanting to spend on something because it was a good idea, whether or not it was affordable! Jacinda Ardern sounds like she delivered a great speech, in spite of the Nat MPs shouting out that she wasn’t qualified to comment because she doesn’t have children….. “children or coal”.
NAct continue to criticise the opposition for things they are guilty of….. they have become frighteningly Orwellian.
“Stop subsidising heavy polluters and we can back kids. Build one less road of national significance and we can help kids and their families,” she said. “This Government has proven that their priority is not children.”
Ms Barry, 52, responded by asking: “How many kids do you have?”
The North Shore MP later added: “Don’t be so precious, petal.”
The Opposition side of the House erupted with calls for an apology, which the first-term Government member refused to give.
[…]
“Stop subsidising heavy polluters and we can back kids. Build one less road of national significance and we can help kids and their families,” she said. “This Government has proven that their priority is not children.”
I would have thought an MP getting their information from comprehensive research, reports etc on such issues, is better than taking just one woman’s experience. Furthermore, Barry shows why it is a relevant issue to Ardern personally, because, at any time, she can/could be making a decision as to if/when to have children.
Barry…. a light weight intellectually, and, just plain nasty.
Ms Ardern was asking people if they “preferred coal or children”.
“Stop subsidising heavy polluters and we can back kids. Build one less road of national significance and we can help kids and their families,” she said. “This Government has proven that their priority is not children.”
Ms Barry:”How many kids do you have?”
And later: “Don’t be so precious, petal.”
Labour MP Trevor Mallard later wrote on his Twitter feed: “Shame on Maggie Barry … Women parliamentarians should know better than to criticise each other for not having children.”
Speaking after the debate, Ms Barry, who had her only child in her late 30s, said: “I am not apologising for it. I don’t think it’s a very sensitive issue. Jacinda dishes the dirt as much as any.”
Barry is right, Labour can do it dirty too, but that doesn’t excuse her for unnecessary nastiness like this. Nothing is gained and respect is lost for the taunter.
The Speaker has released the names of Lobbyists with security access cards to Parliament. And interesting list, with those representing interests in representing financial institutions or (largely unsustainable kinds of) energy companies/interests, or backgrounds supporting business and the National Party in the majority:
For some insight into Russell McVeagh, (McLeech), Thirty Pieces of Silver By Anthony Molloy QC, is great reading.
Also McLeech just happen to be representing King Salmon who are applying through the EPA to expand their Dirty, Disease ridden salmon farms in the Marlborough Sounds.
Derogatory comment about female opposition party members “not having children” is nothing new from the National Party.
Weren’t they always making snide remarks about Helen Clark along the same lines ?
Yes, the Nats like to keep gender stereotypes in place, and for women to keep their (in Nat eyes) subordinate position as mothers. And they tend to use women to police other women in doing this (see Paula Benefit’s track record)…… unless they are a woman with a Taser, who is prepared to crush cars (preferably by making themselves a spectacle in fetishist high heels).
And they do not have a good record in supporting women with children, especially if they are on low incomes.
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): I am very glad that the National Party are talking about their so-called glorious, Nuremberg-like rally that happened at the weekend, because the Prime Minister came out of that, triumphant in his own mind that the National Party faithful…
Not exactly parallel. The swipe at Ardern (as a working woman) was personal and targeting supporting women (of child-bearing age) who are the least powerful sex in the Nat scheme of things. Cosgrove was attacking a triumphalist party who have a strong record in government of anti-democratic policies and legislation.
Although, I’m not that keen on such hyperbolism or use of that extreme metaphor, which will probably launch me into mod if I name it.
I don’t like it whoever does it. And despite some opposition to criticising Barry on KB it’s not all one way there:
“This is a brainfart by Maggie Barrie.”
“These stupid remarks reflect on the party reputation, as has been the case with liebour, and rightly so.”
“maggies comments were a bit crap”
Maggie Barry is a nasty little common gardener. It seems that many people resort to just this sort of personal attack because they do not have the intellectual capability to argue the actual policy under debate.She is a nasty vindictive piece of work. The women of the National Party are all the same.A gaggle of shrews all vying to be Apha female in order to impress the little man.Wonder what he has been promising them?
If my former flatmate is anything to go by, they simply buy all of National’s brighter future tripe and don’t know anything about any of the people involved or any of the policies and what they mean.
She works in ECE and was very angry about the 2010 budget. I suggested to her not to vote National next time; not sure how (or if) she voted in 2011.
You are so right about the Alpha females of National, trying to out macho one another. Whilst driving in the last few days (a rare event for me) Paula (lard arse) Bennett came on the radio and said words to the effect “We are going to take the benefit away from those people on the run from the police”….the shrill refrain followed by a giggle Dr Evil would have been proud of.
My heart sank, is this the type of glib nonsense our leaders are reduced to I thought. Such a stupid statement by such an ill educated and pig ignorant bully. So lets break it down a little:
* on the run from the Police….who decides who is on the run, or just not around etc?
* on the run…does that mean guilty prior to charge or court? Or is that just assumed?
* does guilty of an offense mean you should be kicked off of a benefit? Is Social Development now an arm of Corrections / Justice?
* does Paula think that some cop stating you are on the run from the law means that you must be guilty and therefore to be stripped of your rights as a citizen at her whim?
* benefit stopped as above…what happens to dependents? Or are they guilty by association?
In short this bitch is playing fast and loose with the rights of the citizen, she is well out of order. Where are Shearer and Parker when you really need them to stand up?
the twitter hashtag #maggiebarrystandingorders is providing some real gems! My favourite so far: “You can only talk about asset sales if you have three TradeMe stars or more. #maggiebarrystandingorders”
Maggie the boys lusted after, the middle aged men swooned, she of the fabulous red hair, such a flower, a blossom. We wise gardeners know that such beauties as anenome, clematis, daffodil, wisteria, lily etc are all poisonous. To quote the Bard “This potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit”:
Complaints under another section; 134(2); were not possible because they must be laid within six months of the return being supplied, and police had first received the complaint 10 months after the six months had expired.
Well, the government’s good news lasted about ten minutes …
From Red Alert, here are the new private members’ bills, drawn from the ballot today:
State-Owned Enterprises and Crown Entities (Protecting New Zealand’s Strategic Assets) Amendment Bill (Clayton Cosgrove)
Resource Management (Restricted Duration of Certain Discharge and Coastal Permits) Amendment Bill (Catherine Delahunty) Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill
Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill (Shane Jones)
Minimum Wage Amendment Bill (David Clark)
No Right Turn says “It’s all on.” See italics!
i.e. Key (and yes, Shearer) now have to stop mucking around and vote Yes or No to marriage equality. Stand by for more squirming …
Banks’ “win” will get a headline for a few hours. Louisa Wall’s win will make headlines for months.
Now all we need is for MPs who favour marriage equality to say so – without waffle and weasel-words. Plus, the inevitable bonus of Craig and Tamaki and co ranting against this. Bigots being exposed, and ultimately, losing. With Key pandering to both sides.
The problem is that although Labour think this Bill is the most important thing to happen bloody near forever, nobody else really gives a stuff. That is the answer to previous questions as to why women identify with Key and why young women identify with National, they simply have more important things in common to worry about (like children).
Labour have isolated themselves into an “identity politics” party at the expense of wider support.
It’s not a question of “the most important thing”.
It’s a private members’ bill, and a conscience vote. Opposition MPs don’t get to write the budget, decide policy direction, or do much at all. This is one of the few things they can do. Yesterday’s double win was a good example.
If there are easy votes in opposing this, National (i.e. Key) will oppose it. But there aren’t any more. So the law will pass, because it is now on the right side of public opinion. That’s good, right?
Human rights used to be considered fairly important but then we got a serious case of neo-liberalism and now everyone seems to have more important things to worry about like feeding themselves.
That Stuff link (now updated) shows why this bill is not just morally right … it’s also good politics:
Watch the Nats run for cover …
Environment minister Amy Adams said she would ”give it some thought.”
”My initial view is that what we have seems to be working pretty well, but I’m not taking a position at this stage,” Adams said.
Health minister Tony Ryall said he wanted to look ”at exactly what it is before we make a decision on that.” He refused to say if he supported gay marriage.
New Plymouth MP Jonathan Young said he had no comment – other than he would canvas the views of his constituents.
Defence minister Jonathan Coleman said he wanted to read the bill before forming a view.
Translation – As soon as Key gives them the nod, they will (miraculously) make up their minds.
Get a bulk order of popcorn, this is gonna be fun.
In Maggie Barry world will they only be able to discuss Gay Marriage if they have a same sex partner. I get so confused about the rules coming from the Nasties.
If his, or anyone’s, opinion gets shot to pieces by logic and fact then they should probably change their opinion – not complain that they can’t have an opinion.
Here’s a statistic that you won’t see in research on anti-Semitism, no matter how meticulous the study is. In the first six months of the year, 154 anti-Semitic assaults have been recorded, 45 of them around one village alone. Some fear that last year’s record high of 411 attacks – significantly more than the 312 attacks in 2010 and 168 in 2009 – could be broken this year.
Fifty-eight incidents were recorded in June alone, including stone-throwing targeting farmers and shepherds, shattered windows, arson, damaged water pipes and water-storage facilities, uprooted fruit trees and one damaged house of worship. The assailants are sometimes masked, sometimes not; sometimes they attack surreptitiously, sometimes in the light of day.
There were two violent attacks a day, in separate venues, on July 13, 14 and 15. The words “death” and “revenge” have been scrawled in various areas; a more original message promises that “We will yet slaughter.”
It’s no accident that the diligent anti-Semitism researchers have left out this data. That’s because they don’t see it as relevant, since the Semites who were attacked live in villages with names like Jalud, Mughayer and At-Tuwani, Yanun and Beitilu. The daily dose of terrorizing (otherwise known as terrorism) that is inflicted on these Semites isn’t compiled into a neat statistical report, nor is it noticed by most of the Jewish population in Israel and around the world – even though the incidents resemble the stories told by our grandparents.
The day our grandparents feared was Sunday, the Christian Sabbath; the Semites, who are not of interest to the researchers monitoring anti-Semitism, fear Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Our grandparents knew that the order-enforcement authorities wouldn’t intervene to help a Jewish family under attack; we know that the Israel Defense Forces, the Israel Police, the Civil Administration, the Border Police and the courts all stand on the sidelines, closing their eyes, ….
so for a bit of light relief who is going to support the WWF in their call for China, Vietnam and Thailand to do something about their contribution to Elephant and Rhinoceros extinction threats.
So I’ve read it all again, again. This time in English. Before I’d stuck to the Swedish versions of the leaked police interviews to make sure I was going to the closest source. The translation into English is good and accurate, in my opinion. Here’s the link…
It’s all here, virtually everything I tried to get the Guardian, the Independent, the Observer, the New Statesman interestsed in examining.
One’s struck by lots of things in the police interveiws. Firstly the Swedish police can conduct telephone interviews in the case, as they’ve done with several of the ‘witnesses’, without the need to arrest anyone, so why not Assange?
The almost total lack of any witnesses or evidence to confirm that any crime actually took place, apart from the statements of the two women involved, and they are ‘tainted’ and arguably wouldn’t stand up in court to cross-examination, even in Sweden, which is why the first prosecutor in Stockholm dropped the case like a hot stone.
The two women did not go to the police and claim that Assange attacked, asssaulted, used violence, or raped them. And they should know. ….
By the way, what’s the provenance of the transcripts? I’ve not seen it mentioned that they’d been leaked before. I’d hate for someone to think that I just took random internet websites at face value.
You’ll notice that at the end of the post, I wrote that one could learn more by clicking onto the Media Lens site, and I helpfully provided a hyperlink.
No evidence whatsoever that transcripts had been leaked.
They were leaked, all right. That’s an English translation.
How do you know that this isn’t just Assange fanfic?
It’s not. Unlike the fictional “case” against Assange, this leaked evidence stands on its merits: it has not been refuted.
But what a neat and nasty little propaganda coinage: “Assange fanfic”.
It’s demeaning to his defenders on two levels:
1.) The FAN part of “fanfic” implies that, as well as being “celebrities like Jemima Khan”, Assange’s principled defenders (Chomsky, Pilger, Maguire, Ellsberg, and millions more) are merely “fans”;
2.) The FIC part of “fanfic” implies that Assange’s defence is fictional, and fraudulent.
Neat propaganda, but shallow, and utterly without merit—just like the fictional “case” against Assange.
How do you know that this isn’t just Assange fanfic?
It’s not. Unlike the fictional “case” against Assange, this leaked evidence stands on its merits: it has not been refuted.
So your evidence of the authenticity of these transcripts is that the Swedish government hasn’t commented on the accuracy of internet documents that claim to be leaked evidence in ongoing investigations?
And I wasn’t suggesting Chomsky or Pilger invented the transcripts. Just that some little internet groupie who bought a “team assange” tshirt might have wanted to write their own Shades of Grey.
Do you have any evidence whatsoever that any or all witness interviews have been leaked? And that this “transcript” is accurate?
And even if the link IS true and accurate (doubtful), do you seriously have no qualms at all about publicly distributing the evidence gathered in ongoing police investigations into sexual assault? IMO, a group prepared to do that would be just as willing to fabricate “transcripts” to help defend their cause. The ends justify the means, and all that.
I imagine Assange’s supporters would number in the dozens nowadays. For some reason people tend to go off cowards who run away rather than face the consequences of their own sleazy actions. Those who have gone off him recently include most of the people that you list as being his supporters. They were helping him and showing a remarkeable degree of trust right up until he did a runner and blew the money they’d put up as security against him bottling out.
On the up side, if he ever needs a bed for the night in NZ, I’m sure he’ll find you most obliging, Mozza. If you know what I mean 😉
I imagine Assange’s supporters would number in the dozens nowadays.
His supporters include the most admired and principled political dissidents in the world. And millions more, of course. But feel free to go ahead and pretend otherwise.
For some reason people tend to go off cowards who run away rather than face the consequences of their own sleazy actions.
His “sleazy actions” were to sleep with groupies. I’ll bet you would do the same if you ever did anything brave enough to give you the heroic status that Assange has earned. There is no evidence that he did anything illegal—but you would know that if you did any serious reading on the subject.
Those who have gone off him recently include most of the people that you list as being his supporters.
Oh really? And your evidence for this is…. what, exactly?
Seriously, CV? Morrissey has been spamming the Open Mikes for days now with copypasted Assange defence crap. When asked to actually establish provenance for his sources, he cannot.
Meanwhile, we’ve already had an epic thread wherein plenty of explanatory articles have been linked to and generally brushed away by Morrissey, yourself, et al because … well … Sweden should just cede its legal sovereignty, and Zionism, and also “sex makes fools of us all.”
Yeah, but it’s the people who want Assange held accountable for his actions who are just meanies.
Ever considered that maybe the way rape culture oppresses and victimizes women might be a little bit more important than how much it ~hurts your feelings~ to be called a rape apologist when you’re indulging in rape apologism?
So all you are interested in is Assange being held accountable, yeah? Hey I go with that 100%.
If Sweden can give an assurance that they aren’t going to ship Assange off to Guantanamo Bay asap – a pretty easy statement to make I would have thought – than I agree Assange should be shipped off to Sweden asap to face the legal music.
If Sweden made such a statement, Ecuador would have no more grounds to protect Assange in their embassy either.
But yeah, why don’t you keep focussing on protecting Sweden’s ‘legal sovereignty to ship Assange to a US military prison anytime they want to’.
Not sure. Factors might include:
– Level of media attention
– Lack of UK political agreement
– Strength of public support for Assange
– Complications from UK judicial oversight
Regardless, Sweden should give Assange (and the rest of the w/orld) an assurance that he will not be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay asap.
Not sure. Factors might include: – Level of media attention – Lack of UK political agreement – Strength of public support for Assange – Complications from UK judicial oversight
– becue Sweden doesn’t have any media?
– doesn’t do shit against a red notice
– damned Assande-hating swedes
– because the one and only time Swedish inteligence services broke the rules (just after 9/11) the courts didn’t get involved?
And face it – the Swedes haven’t shot any electricians since 9/11, have they?
So getting an assurance should be a walk in the park right, McFlock? One little assurance and the Ecuador embassy has no more grounds to protect Assange.
You get what you want: Assange with no where else to run to.
An assurance not to be shipped to Guanatano Bay under the pretext of routine investigative questioning on something completely irrelevant is not that big a “favour” now, is it.
And you would get what you want: Assange kicked out of Ecuador embassy protection and on a plane to Sweden.
Still: the US’s extradition treaty with the UK gives them pretty much carte blanche (thanks TB…), Sweden’s less so. Why would the US want him in a country it will be harder to extradite him from?
But I’m not getting into this, I’ve seen the epic threads…
Morrissey has been spamming the Open Mikes for days now with copypasted Assange defence crap.
The examples of “spam” I posted were: (1) an official release by Women Against Rape, expressing the gravest concern about the sincerity and the truthfulness of the “allegations” against Assange; (2) a meticulously detailed Media Lens exposé of the (so-called) liberal media’s parroting of official lies about Assange; and (3) Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire’s plea to the Ecuadorean government to grant Assange political asylum.
If that’s “spam” then Garth George is a brilliant journalist, Christine (Spankin’) Rankin is a child advocate, and Peter “Possum” Dunne is a profile in courage.
When asked to actually establish provenance for his sources, he cannot.
I can, and I did. It’s interesting, on the other hand, that the persecutors of Assange have provided not a scintilla of evidence.
….generally brushed away by Morrissey, yourself, et al because … well … Sweden should just cede its legal sovereignty, and Zionism, and also “sex makes fools of us all.”
I’ve never said or written any of those things. You’re just making it up as you go. Have you considered a job with the Key administration?
Yeah, but it’s the people who want Assange held accountable for his actions who are just meanies.
There is no evidence against him at all, as you would know if you read up on this travesty with any seriousness at all. However, there is of course evidence that he did what a journalist should do, and exposed massive state crimes being perpetrated by (among others) the United States and its satellite regimes. Those are the actions that they want to punish him for; but they were not illegal, of course. Hence the invention of these sex allegations.
The prosecutors of Assange seem to think there is probable cause. Contrary to what teamassange groupies might think, the interwebz are not the judiciary.
What “provenance” did you provide? A link to some random web page? No other sources to suggest that the swedes were investigating a massive leak of documents relating to sexual assault investigations? None of the witnesses confirming the contents of the transcript? No swedish “bradass87”?
The faithful have been fabricating icons and supporting evidence for millenia. And not everything on the internet is true. All I want is some corroborating evidence.
Sweden should give Assange an assurance that he will not be shipped out to Guantanamo, the Ecuadorians will have no grounds to keep him in their embassy, and then you will get exactly what you want – Assange in front of Swedish criminal investigators.
So an entire Swedish legal system should compromise because some guy jumped bail in the UK?
I much prefer the option of patient justice – if he ever wants to go anywhere in the developed world, he has Swedish and British fugitive notices to worry about, as well as US. And if Ecuador wants to build international links, well they’ve got him on tap, haven’t they. A cross between Carlos the Jackal and Paul Gadd.
Promising to not ship someone to military internment in Guantanamo Bay on completely unrelated matters can compromise a so-called justice system?
And if Ecuador wants to build international links, well they’ve got him on tap, haven’t they. A cross between Carlos the Jackal and Paul Gadd.
So you don’t want to get Assange in front of Swedish criminal investigators asap? You prefer to keep the Swedish women complainants waiting while some kind of international espionage intrigue gets played out?
Nope.
A promise not to extradite someone to country B is a compromise of the justice system:
A promise not to deport straight to guantanamo means a promise not to extradite to the US, period.
A promise not to extradite to the US means a promise not to extradite to the US even on charges that are legitimate, such as if he raped someone in the US (if he’s ever been there).
A banket promise not to extradite to the US means a promise not to extradite to any nation that might give him to the US. Even if they, too, have 100% legitimate charges.
Basically, you’re asking the Swedes to guarantee that he’ll never be deported to damned near anywhere on the panet, no matter what he’s accused of and no matter how much evidence and no matter what international obligations.
But there’s no compromise if they look at requests on a case by case basis. Just like the UK did.
But I’d actually prefer it if Assange decided to take responsibility for what he did, and front up to face the charges. The dangers of plane flight back to Sweden would be a bigger threat to his life and freedom than the danger of rendition to the states.
Hey McFlock – where did you put your concern that the women complainants in Sweden get justice quickly, on that priority list of international law, intrigue and espionage?
Oh yeah I see now, you added it as a footnote: Assange should just man up and take the risk of being shipped out to Guantanamo Bay held under military arrest on the chin, as a matter of course.
I’m sure he’ll take that candid suggestion under advisement.
You want to protect Sweden’s justice system and you want to protect Sweden’s sovereign right to extradite persons anywhere in the world that they are empowered to, for any reasons their justice system and various international treaties allow.
You want to protect the integrity of both the Swedish justice systems and international law. Is that right, eh? Are you sure that’s all?
I want justice systems to work with integrity. Extradition is part of that. That way they can hold all criminals accountable for their actions, and ensure that the innocent aren’t convicted unjustly.
That will improve public confidence in the justice system, so the public would be more likely to report crme of all types – especially sexual crimes, which have a microscopic reporting nature.
That wil reduce crime.
Is there anything inconsistent in all that? What more do you think I want?
oh, by the way: Why didn’t the UK send him to the states again?
I want justice systems to work with integrity. Extradition is part of that.
Are you truly genuine about that?
Specifically, do you believe that in addition to extradition, asylum from politically motivated prosecution is another legitimate part of the system of international law?
And if so, do you then accept that Ecuador has the full right (under established international law) to provide Assange with temporary refuge while its government assesses his individual case on its individual merits?
So why didn’t he ask for political asylum in the UK? They take asylum-seekers, too. Like Sweden does, interestingly enough.
I’m not sure I’ve ever criticised Ecuador’s right to consider and grant asylum. I’m criticising Assange for hiding behind conspiracy theories to avoid a sexual assault investigation.
oh, by the way: Why didn’t the UK send him to the states again?
You accept that seeking asylum from politically motivated prosecution is a legitimate part of established international law. Just like extradition is.
You further accept that Ecuador has the right to give Assange temporary refuge while it assesses the merits of his case on its individual merits.
And since you said that you would be very patient with the necessarily slow movement of complex legal processes (in order to protect the integrity of the international justice system was your rationale), you will no doubt accept Assange exercising his rights under international law to request asylum, and for Ecuador to exercise its sovereign rights to assess that request thoroughly and with due process.
Am I correct, or have I misread your stance of principal on international law as being more genuine than it really is?
I believe in asylum, I even believe in Assange’s right to claim asylum for protection against political prosecution.
So why didn’t he ask for asylum from the UK? What was the ruling when his lawyers brought up political oppression in the extradition hearing. Did they? The UK can grant asylum too.
He’s claiming asylum from country C because country B decided to extradite him to country A on probable cause for investigation into sexual assault and rape.
I believe in Assange’s right to claim asylum as protection from political persecution. I don’t believe in his right to pervert the principle of asylum by using it to avoid answering questions about sexual assaults. To me, it looks suspiciously like the latter.
So: Why didn’t the UK send him to the states again? Why are the swedes more likely to? and I’ll add: why didn’t he ask for asylum in the UK?
So you are willing to wait for Ecuador to do what it needs to, in order for them to properly and legally assess Assange’s request for political asylum using thorough due process?
Lets wait and see what happens then. You won’t try and rush or prejudge the issues will you?
I have no choice but to wait for Ecuador’s decision. Interwebz arguments do not substitute for a justice system in any nation.
I do find your hierarchy of competent legal systems intriguing, though:
Sweden is a corrupt politicised pawn of the US satan;
The UK is better than Sweden, but not good enough to be asked for asylum or indeed not extradite to Sweden;
Ecuador is an enlightened nation that will deliver the judgement of Solomon.
Bear in mind that so far Assange has struck out with 2 out of 3 seperate judicial systems. And I get the impression that if Ecuador refuses asylum you’ll be saying “let’s try the next one”. And if he camps further and further down Embassy Row you’ll end up praising the wisdom and justice of the Iranian government.
Why didn’t the UK send him to the states again? Why are the swedes more likely to? why didn’t he ask for asylum in the UK?
And I get the impression that if Ecuador refuses asylum you’ll be saying “let’s try the next one”.
The justice system by its nature presents individuals with more than one opportunity for their case to be heard. That is what the system of appeals is all about.
My point was that it’s all very well for you to ask me to keep an open mind, but the fact is that your mind is closed to the possibility that he did it, knows there is no real risk of being deported to the US by sweden, but is using fear of TPTB as an excuse to avoid accountability for his actions.
Seriously, if that were the true state of affairs, how could someone convince you of it? All courts that rule against him are stooges of US imperialist hegemony. All accusers are ignorantly spreading black propaganda. The most flimsy uncorroborated internet link in his favour proves his innocence. Is there any theoretical way that the logical possibility of his guilt and abuse of asylum could be demonstrated to you, if it were true?
Why didn’t the UK send him to the states? Why are the swedes more likely to?why didn’t he ask for asylum in the UK?
dogma, what you find when solutions never materialize, welcome
to the under perfrorming NZ economy, for decades and decades.
The same trite arguments that miss the essential point about the NZ
economy, that we reward investment in housing over productive endeavors.
But wait its worse.
Values. Glen Owen charity is a role model hang over from the
class system because it reinforces the view that we must be all
wealth to be generous to our lesser citizens. That merit be damned,
wealth is all that matters. Surely to be successful like Nordic nations
we need also to look up to successful people who are fabulously wealth.
In fact its because we speak the same language as Americans, and
their culture dominates ours, and we don’t have Nobel prizes (or wealthy
people who reward intellectualism), that we continue to pick the worse
economic policies for NZ, because some trite US twit says charter schools,
or whatever, is the next cool economic fad.
National and Labour are hollow idiots pandering to poor policy prescriptions
because they can’t beat out the nonsense imported from the US.
The biggest problem for NZs economy (and that of the rest of the world) is that we’ve been rewarding the rich for being rich and not only letting them get away with corruption but giving them multi-million dollar golden handshakes when their hands are caught in the till.
Not to mention tax cuts that have to be financed from debt paid for by the rank and file taxpayer….dont give me any crap about the rich paying the most tax.
Its now a very real fact, that the artificial construct of a business entity is consider equivalent to a person (SCOTUS), but the greatest burden, tax if you will, upon Mother Earth has not yet been provided with even basic rights. Sue God? NO! Mother Earth should sue the USA.
I’m assuming that most still pay significant tax under the progressive tax system and have also been subject to the same GST rises as everyone else ?
As for the SOE sell down if you’re bemoaning the fact that people can purchase a few thousand dollars worth of shares as a reward for the rich being rich I think you’re being overly bombastic.
1: they pay less tax than they did 5 years ago. That is a “reward”. The poor pay more.
2: Subject to the same GST rises… depending on how they structured their finances, how much goes through companies or trusts, and how much is invested. Unlike the poor, who spend all their money on personal goods and services therefore probably pay 15% of their entire “after tax” income on GST.
3: You might sniff at a few thousand bucks returning 18% not being much of a reward. Alternatively, the other 95% of the country would gratefully appreciate it.
1. How do you know they pay less tax than they did five years ago, they might then again they might not with GST changes and other tweaks in the tax system? As I said there used to be an interesting dataset published by treasury I think on tax by type and income bracket.
2. Again you make assumptions – this may or may not be the case.
3. Are you suggesting that the shares in SOEs being offered are going to return 18% ….fantastic i’ll make sure to invest and if that’s the case you should invest as mush as possible yourself.
1: tax rates are lower in higher brackets
2: indeed. Just as if my lotto numbers come up, I don’t have to collect the winnings.
3: yeah good call – fubared those math alright 🙂 But it’s still an investment that poor people can’t make in infrastructure that everybody already equally owns.
1.Tax rates are lower than they used to be in higher tax brackets, they are still higher in the higher tax brackets and those in the higher brackets still pay the majority of income tax in NZ. I still believe that there is room for a high earners tax bracket in NZ in line with the highest level across the Tasman.
2. Not sure what you’re trying to say here.
3. I’ll bet you that even someone of very very modest means could lend money if they could ensure an 18% return.
1: So because higher earners have a slightly higher tax proportion, the tax cuts they received (coincidentally just before we nosedived into massive deficit) is in no way a reward?
2: they might or might not funnel their spare cash through trusts or companies. Therefore they might ot might not be subject to the same proportion of GST payment. Just as I might or might not choose to pick up my winnings, the prize is still there for me.
3: aye, that’s why I said I fubared the math. But they’re solid investments (barring ToW claims or a leftwing govt getting balls and renationalising at punitive rates). And rich people are the ones with the opportunity to invest – poor people have no assets against which they can borrow to play stockmarket trader.
1. Higher earners pay more tax always have and always should, as I’ve said in the present conditions I think there should be a high earners tax bracket in NZ in line with the highest level across the Tasman.
2. It is illegal to charge non-business expenses to a business
3. I think we’re getting into the argument about what is rich, there are certainly people who wouldn’t have the funds or be able to get the funds to invest, there are also likely to be many who couldn’t be classed as rich who could if they so chose. For those people i wonder if they should be offered to cash in the government’s contribution to their Kiwisaver funds to invest if they so chose ?
1: The question is, if they receive a tax break on what they previously paid – isn’t that a reward? Even if they still pay a higher proportion of tax?
2: Yes. But it’s amazing what counts as a “business expense”.
3: allowing people to use government retirement contributions to help them purchase part of a company they already own via the government? See, “rich” people don’t need to risk their retirement savings in order to buy something that they already owned.
2. anyone who has run a business or worked as a contractor knows to claim back GST and minimize tax as much as possible. It’s prudent business sense to do so.
So the only assumption is that you are assuming that NZ’s middle and upper class are not prudent in business.
There is really no arguing that a high income tax break and a rise in GST hit’s PAYE earners whilst limiting the impact on high income earners.
I’ll think you’ll find that if people are rorting GST they’ll receive a major rodgering from IRD sooner or later. Similarly you’re assuming that the majority of those on more than an average or those on high incomes a making that income through their own business i’m not sure that is the case and even if it is whether you could assume that they are all not paying their fair share of tax.
You’ll need to give me an example on the second point so I can understand what you’re meaning.
The company doesn’t need to be their primary source of income.
Just the mechanism through which they funnel their income, or hold assets in (e.g. Double Dipton and his trust). And it doesn’t need to be illegal rorting, just “minimisation” (as CV sorry, UR, said).
It’s not hard to rort GST on things that a low income earner couldn’t.
Transport, entertainment costs, furniture. It’s as easy as a couple becoming joint shareholders in your own company, suddenly dinners out are share meetings and offset tax.
Sure not all high income earners run their own trusts or companies (The majority i’ve met do).
But they still did get a tax break anyway while everyone below gets a GST hike. And the people below don’t have the opportunity/means to offset their GST.
No matter whether your rorting the system legally (which isn’t hard to do) or not, it doesn’t change the fact that this is an option generally only available to the wealthier.
Come on HS mate, you can’t seriously be trying to insinuate that the higher earners have had equal breaks to those on the lower rates under National.
You really believe that National’s policies are bringing a brighter future for the poor?
270,000 children in poverty, the great exodus of our talented and poor job prospects (unless you are high skilled and white apparently).
Surely a GST rise and a tax break for top earners wouldn’t be considered as rewarding the rich for being rich, would it?
It wouldn’t be a priority if I was in Government with the above environment.
Their policies risk a further exodus of our young and talented. The very young, talented youth who for 20 years our taxes have invested in through one of the OECD’s best education systems. This would be my priority, minimizing a massive loss on investment.
Similarly you’re assuming that the majority of those on more than an average or those on high incomes a making that income through their own business i’m not sure that is the case and even if it is whether you could assume that they are all not paying their fair share of tax.
That’s not an assumption any more. We know for a fact that the bludgers are stealing from the rest of us.
Aero Noble sentiments indeed
But a lot of the dynamite used in the world today is used to kill other people and dig up vast quantities of minerals for big corporations.
Sweden has its first right wing government in a log time.
so would you trust them .
30,000 words in five days. Translators normally manage about 2,000 words per day. This feat was by no means a world record but it was difficult and a lot of hard work.
The roughest parts were the transcripts. Transcripts are the next best thing to being there – to having a video recording. The task of the transcriber is to record every non-word, sound, and pause in addition to the actual content, this to as accurately as possible convey the attitude and reactions of the interviewee.
Good translations normally never attempt a ‘word for word’ approach. It’s not only words that differ in different languages – it’s the ideas and concepts as well. The goal of a translator is otherwise to get the idea across rather than produce stilted language no one really grasps. But the translations of the transcripts necessarily took another approach: reproduce all the commas, full stops, ellipses, and even the strange constructs as found in the originals.
There’s only one way to study these documents: as a whole and with the working assumption everyone is telling the truth. Save for several deliberate attempts by Anna Ardin to obfuscate the truth, this approach seems to work.
The ‘case’ (if one dare call it that) hovers on two incidents. One takes place in Enköping in the morning. The two people involved have a simple exchange of two lines each before going at it again for what likely is the fifth time in a long sleepless night. The girl’s just come back to bed after being out early and shopping, the two of them make love again, and start dozing off to sleep.
Suddenly the one starts all over again. The girl senses the man is about to penetrate her. ….
If it were anti-Assange, it would obviously be lies, and probably Zionist. (That link may mark the point at which I chose to stop engaging people obviously willing to spin anything they can in order to avoid stating simple facts: “Assange should face the allegations made against him because they are serious allegations, and if the US wanted his ass David Cameron would have served it up to them already.”)
… it would obviously be lies, and probably Zionist.
That’s twice today you’ve tried to trivialize my case by mentioning the word “Zionist”. The fact that I have never said anything like that probably won’t make any difference to you, but I’d like to point it out to serious readers.
I linked to exactly who did say it, Morrissey. Sorry for not actually tarring all you “shut up, all evidence against Assange is lies and if you aren’t pro-Assange you haven’t read anything about the case, except you might have read a lot but it’s all lies if it’s not pro-Assange” fanpeeps with the same brush.
Yes, it was Vicky, not me. And probably not most of the other supporters of Assange. I’m interested to see that you still chose to include it as one of the arguments you allege his supporters make, in spite of the fact they do not.
Sorry for not actually tarring all you “shut up, all evidence against Assange is lies and if you aren’t pro-Assange you haven’t read anything about the case, except you might have read a lot but it’s all lies if it’s not pro-Assange” fanpeeps with the same brush.
You don’t have to be pro-Assange, but if you are foolish enough to parrot the black propaganda of the U.S. and U.K. governments, then you either have NOT read a lot on this travesty of a case, or you are profoundly corrupt.
The whole issue has become too bound up in absolutes. Of course Assange should comply with the laws of the countries he parades through. Of course he shouldn’t treat women (or anyone else) as though they are disposable. Of course an interview can be carried out by phone. Of course Assange should go to America and martyr himself, and of course the Yankees should stop pretending to occupy the moral high ground.
Of course Ecuador should not let itself be used as a straight man to this clown’s antics. Of course Wikileaks should have properly protected its data from external access and/or betrayal.
Of course Wikileaks can be a force for “good”.
Of course we sound like economists discussing rational actors.
The whole issue has become too bound up in absolutes.
So everything’s relative, is it? The lies told by the authorities and their media vassals like the Guardian, the Murdoch gang and the BBC somehow balance up the exposure of those absolute lies by truth-tellers like Assange and Bradley Manning? It seems that the fact that the U.S. military was absolutely caught out by an absolutely dedicated, absolutely determined journalist is just too much for you to take in, my friend. The only cure for that is more reading. Serious reading, that is.
Of course Assange should comply with the laws of the countries he parades through.
He does comply with the law. There is no evidence he has committed any criminal act. And… he “parades through” countries? Maybe you’ve mixed him up with that fraudster Barack Obama.
Of course he shouldn’t treat women (or anyone else) as though they are disposable.
Who says he does? Take care, my friend, not to automatically believe what government apparatchiks tell you.
Of course Ecuador should not let itself be used as a straight man to this clown’s antics.
So Assange is a “clown” now? A “clown” who “parades” through countries. Now that is a clown with gravitas.
Of course Wikileaks should…
How about dropping the sarcasm? There are enough bewildered people on this forum as it is.
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Poor old democracy, it really is in a sorry state. It would be easy to put all the blame on the vandals and tyrants presently trashing the White House, but this has been years in the making. It begins with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the spirit of Gordon ...
The new school lunches came in this week, and they were absolutely scrumptious.I had some, and even though Connor said his tasted like “stodge” and gave him a sore tummy, I myself loved it!Look at the photos - I knew Mr Seymour wouldn’t lie when he told us last year:"It ...
The tighter sanctions are modelled on ones used in Britain, which did push people off ‘the dole’, but didn’t increase the number of workers, and which evidence has repeatedly shown don’t work. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, ...
Catching you up on the morning’s global news and a quick look at the parallels -GLOBALTariffs are backSharemarkets in the US, UK and Europe have “plunged” in response to Trump’s tariffs. And while Mexico has won a one month reprieve, Canada and China will see their respective 25% and 10% ...
This post by Nicolas Reid was originally published on Linked in. It is republished here with permission. Gondolas are often in the news, with manufacturers of ropeway systems proposing them as a modern option for mass transit systems in New Zealand. However, like every next big thing in transport, it’s hard ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkBoth 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that ...
Hi,I woke up feeling nervous this morning, realising that this weekend Flightless Bird is going to do it’s first ever live show. We’re heading to a sold out (!) show in Seattle to test the format out in front of an audience. If it works, we’ll do more. I want ...
From the United-For-Now States of America comes the thrilling news that a New Zealander may be at the very heart of the current coup. Punching above our weight on the world stage once more! Wait, you may be asking, what New Zealander? I speak of Peter Thiel, made street legal ...
Even Stevens: Over the 33 years between 1990 and 2023 (and allowing for the aberrant 2020 result) the average level of support enjoyed by the Left and Right blocs, at roughly 44.5 percent each, turns out to be, as near as dammit, identical.WORLDWIDE, THE PARTIES of the Left are presented ...
Back in 2023, a "prominent political figure" went on trial for historic sex offences. But we weren't allowed to know who they were or what political party they were "prominent" in, because it might affect the way we voted. At the time, I said that this was untenable; it was ...
I'm going, I'm goingWhere the water tastes like wineI'm going where the water tastes like wineWe can jump in the waterStay drunk all the timeI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayAll this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure ...
Waitangi Day is a time to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and stand together for a just and fair Aotearoa. Across the motu, communities are gathering to reflect, kōrero, and take action for a future built on equity and tino rangatiratanga. From dawn ceremonies to whānau-friendly events, there are ...
Subscribe to Mountain Tūī ! Where you too can learn about exciting things from a flying bird! Tweet.Yes - I absolutely suck at marketing. It’s a fact.But first -My question to all readers is:How should I set up the Substack model?It’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask since November ...
Here’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s political economy on politics and in the week to Feb 3:PM Christopher Luxon began 2025’s first day of Parliament last Tuesday by carrying on where left off in 2024, letting National’s junior coalition partner set the political agenda and dragging ...
The PSA have released a survey of 4000 public service workers showing that budget cuts are taking a toll on the wellbeing of public servants and risking the delivery of essential services to New Zealanders. Economists predict that figures released this week will show continued increases in unemployment, potentially reaching ...
The Prime Minister’s speech 10 days or so ago kicked off a flurry of commentary. No one much anywhere near the mainstream (ie excluding Greens supporters) questioned the rhetoric. New Zealand has done woefully poorly on productivity for a long time and we really need better outcomes, and the sorts ...
President Trump on the day he announced tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China, unleashing a shock to supply chains globally that is expected to slow economic growth and increase inflation for most large economies. Photo: Getty ImagesLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 9 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 3Politics: New Zealand Government cabinet meeting usually held early afternoon with post-cabinet news conference possible at 4 pm, although they have not been ...
Trump being Trump, it won’t come as a shock to find that he regards a strong US currency (bolstered by high tariffs on everything made by foreigners) as a sign of America’s virility, and its ability to kick sand in the face of the world. Reality is a tad more ...
A listing of 24 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 26, 2025 thru Sat, February 1, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
What seems to be the common theme in the US, NZ, Argentina and places like Italy under their respective rightwing governments is what I think of as “the politics of cruelty.” Hate-mongering, callous indifference in social policy-making, corporate toadying, political bullying, intimidation and punching down on the most vulnerable with ...
If you are confused, check with the sunCarry a compass to help you alongYour feet are going to be on the groundYour head is there to move you aroundSo, stand in the place where you liveSongwriters: Bill Berry / Michael Mills / Michael Stipe / Peter Buck.Hot in the CityYesterday, ...
Shane Jones announced today he would be contracting out his thinking to a smarter younger person.Reclining on his chaise longue with a mouth full of oysters and Kina he told reporters:Clearly I have become a has-been, a palimpsest, an epigone, a bloviating fossil. I find myself saying such things as: ...
Warning: This post contains references to sexual assaultOn Saturday, I spent far too long editing a video on Tim Jago, the ACT Party President and criminal, who has given up his fight for name suppression after 2 years. He voluntarily gave up just in time for what will be a ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is global warming ...
Our low-investment, low-wage, migration-led and housing-market-driven political economy has delivered poorer productivity growth than the rest of the OECD, and our performance since Covid has been particularly poor. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty this ...
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.As far as major government announcements go, a Three Ministers Event is Big. It can signify a major policy development or something has gone Very Well, or an absolute Clusterf**k. When Three Ministers assemble ...
One of those blasts from the past. Peter Dunne – originally neoliberal Labour, then leader of various parties that sought to work with both big parties (generally National) – has taken to calling ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner has recommended a Judicial Conduct Panel be established to inquire into and report on the alleged conduct of acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken in an incident last November, Attorney-General Judith Collins said today. “I referred the matter of Judge Aitken’s alleged conduct during an incident ...
Students who need extra help with maths are set to benefit from a targeted acceleration programme that will give them more confidence in the classroom, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Last year, significant numbers of students did not meet the foundational literacy and numeracy level required to gain NCEA. To ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced three new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te Iwi – without a vision, the people will perish. The Government has achieved its target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing motels by 75 per cent five years early, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The number of households ...
The opening of Palmerston North’s biggest social housing development will have a significant impact for whānau in need of safe, warm, dry housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The minister visited the development today at North Street where a total of 50 two, three, and four-bedroom homes plus a ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the new membership of the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC), who will serve for a three-year term. “The Committee brings together wide-ranging expertise relevant to disarmament. We have made six new appointments to the Committee and reappointed two existing members ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora, good morning, talofa, malo e lelei, bula vinaka, da jia hao, namaste, sat sri akal, assalamu alaikum. It’s so great to be here and I’m ready and pumped for 2025. Can I start by acknowledging: Simon Bridges – CEO of the Auckland ...
The Government has unveiled a bold new initiative to position New Zealand as a premier destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) that will create higher paying jobs and grow the economy. “Invest New Zealand will streamline the investment process and provide tailored support to foreign investors, to increase capital investment ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins today announced the largest reset of the New Zealand science system in more than 30 years with reforms which will boost the economy and benefit the sector. “The reforms will maximise the value of the $1.2 billion in government funding that goes into ...
Turbocharging New Zealand’s economic growth is the key to brighter days ahead for all Kiwis, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. In the Prime Minister’s State of the Nation Speech in Auckland today, Christopher Luxon laid out the path to the prosperity that will affect all aspects of New Zealanders’ lives. ...
The latest set of accounts show the Government has successfully checked the runaway growth of public spending, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. “In the previous government’s final five months in office, public spending was almost 10 per cent higher than for the same period the previous year. “That is completely ...
The Government’s welfare reforms are delivering results with the number of people moving off benefits into work increasing year-on-year for six straight months. “There are positive signs that our welfare reset and the return consequences for job seekers who don't fulfil their obligations to prepare for or find a job ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra US President Donald Trump has agreed to “consider” exempting Australia from the 25% tariff he has imposed on imports of steel and aluminium to the US. Trump gave the undertaking during a wide-ranging 40-minute ...
Pacific Media Watch Israeli police have confiscated hundreds of books with Palestinian titles or flags without understanding their contents in a draconian raid on a Palestinian educational bookshop in occupied East Jerusalem, say eyewitnesses. More details have emerged on the Israeli police raid on a popular bookstore in occupied East ...
By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist China and the Cook Islands’ relationship “should not be disrupted or restrained by any third party”, says Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun, as opposition leaders in Rarotonga express a loss of confidence in Prime Minister Mark Brown. In response to questions from the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Ogden, Associate Professor in Global Studies, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Donald Trump is moving rapidly to change the contours of contemporary international affairs, with the old US-dominated world order breaking down into a multipolar one with many centres of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ronnie Das, Associate Professor in Data Analytics, The University of Western Australia In the recent Border-Gavaskar series against India, Steve Smith agonisingly missed out reaching 10,000 Test runs in front of his home crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground, falling short by ...
In a brand new documentary series for The Spinoff, comedians and best friends Brynley Stent and Kura Forrester embark on a cross-country quest to find love. Bryn & Ku’s Singles Club is a brand new documentary series for The Spinoff following award-winning comedians and friends Brynley Stent and ...
🚐 Bryn and Ku pack their bags and swap the bleak dating scene of Tāmaki Makaurau for some meet and mingle events in Ōtautahi that will take them out of their comfort zone. ❣️ Bryn & Ku’s Singles Club follows comedians Brynley Stent and Kura Forrester as they head out ...
"The relationship between China and the Cook Islands does not target any third party," the Chinese Foreign Ministry says, as opposition leaders in Rarotonga plan protest. ...
From tradwives to ‘petite blonde’ preferences, this season feels like a throwback for all the wrong reasons, writes Alex Casey. First of all: I know. Complaining about bad stuff on Married at First Sight Australia is like complaining that water is wet. But I’ve been bobbing around in these waters ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a public servant who’s ‘trying to get better’ explains her approach to spending and saving. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Female. Age: 24. Ethnicity: Pākehā and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zena Assaad, Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering, Australian National University Ziv Lavi/Shutterstock Last week, Google quietly abandoned a long-standing commitment to not use artificial intelligence (AI) technology in weapons or surveillance. In an update to its AI principles, which were first ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brenainn Simpson, PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland Florian Nimsdorf / Shutterstock About 400 kilometres northwest of Sydney, just south of Dubbo, lies a large and interesting body of rock formed around 215 million years ago by erupting volcanoes. Known as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mareike Riedel, Senior lecturer in law, Macquarie University The dramatic rise in antisemitic incidents has dominated headlines in Australia in recent months, with calls for urgent action to address what many are calling a crisis. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane McAdam, Scientia Professor and ARC Laureate Fellow, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Sydney For a long time, it seemed refugee law had little relevance to people fleeing the impacts of climate change and disasters. Nearly 30 years ago, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maggie Kirkman, Senior Research Fellow, Global and Women’s Health, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University Krakenimages.com/Shutterstock You’ve heard of the gender pay gap. What about the gap in medical care? Cardiovascular diseases – which can lead to heart ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Iain White, Professor of Environmental Planning, University of Waikato Getty Images Urban planning has a long history of promoting visionary ideas that advocate for particular futures. The most recent is the concept of the 15-minute city, which has gained traction globally. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, Associate Professor in Climate Science, ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather, The University of Melbourne Earth is crossing the threshold of 1.5°C of global warming, according to two major global studies which together suggest the planet’s climate has ...
As support for the coalition dips, the PM and his soon-to-be-deputy have engaged in a public war of words. Stewart Sowman-Lund has the details in today’s edition of The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Support slips If there was ever a political honeymoon, or ...
Failure by successive governments has left the South Island’s freshwater in a near disastrous state, the High Court has been told, in a case that could force the Crown to jointly manage water bodies with Ngāi Tahu.Individual Ngāi Tahu leaders, and the collective group Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, are ...
Nearing the end of his career, the world’s greatest unicycle racer chases the sport’s most elusive record. There’s something different about world-class athletes. Even if you know nothing about their sport, you can see it. It’s the way they move – precise, powerful. It’s how they carry themselves – focused, ...
Migrants with money are the focus of new visa settings that the government hopes will boost the economy. Alice Neville explains.What’s all this then? On Sunday, as part of the government’s big plan to kickstart economic growth, changes were announced to the Active Investor Plus visa category, with the ...
Swirly World Sails South, by Andrew Fagan (2012)I feel Andrew is totally under-rated as an author. Alongside his latest book, Swirly World: Lost at Sea, his earlier sailing book is among my favourites. It tells of his trip around New Zealand – via the Auckland Islands. When he set out, ...
A lineup of prominent figures have joined the call to halt the deportation of a mother convicted of inflicting injuries on her baby, as fears grow she could be another victim of a ...
Comment: Saturday February 1 was the grim fourth anniversary of the military coup in Myanmar. The date seems to have gone unnoticed back here in New Zealand. Even before war in Ukraine and then Gaza, Myanmar got little attention. Yet it is the most destructive conflict in our region. The ...
We’re on the brink of a ‘tidal wave’ of misinformation.No one knows the size of it, but there’s a warning that leaving it to the government to sort out won’t work.In the year of local government elections, expect computer-generated content where the sources and authenticity are murky; more complaints about ...
Comment: The next four years are going to bring a terrible information environment, with absurd claims bubbling up from fever swamps overseas The post Paranoia and politics appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Yasser Abdulaal, who has lived in Ōtautahi Christchurch for five years, said his two sisters had lost their homes in the 15-month-long war. “Toxic wasteland” . . . Palestinians take shelter in tents set up amid heavily damaged buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot ...
RNZ PacificMarshall Islands Journal editor Giff Johnson says US President Donald Trump’s decision on aid “is an opening for anybody else who wants to fill the gap” in the Pacific. Trump froze all USAID for 90 days on his first day in office and is now looking to significantly ...
Starter for 10,
Who said this and when?
“I think that the bond of trust that’s built up between a prime minister or politicians in the electorate is very important.”
Slippery the Prime Minister to Shane Taurima on TV1’s Q+A, Sunday 22nd July 2012…
I’ll bite –
Must be Keys cause it don’t make any sense.
unless you want it to – then its a charming statement of guileless uncomplicated straight talking which is what this country needs from its leaders.
Doubt it was Labour or the Greens. I don’t think they do “trust”.
Jesus Mary and Joseph.
The latest Roy Morgan is out and Labour is down 2.5% and National is up 2%.
This should be a wake up call to the Labour leadership. Sleep walking to victory is not going to work. They need to be doing something much more significant than playing guitar and talking about mango skins.
You may be right Socialist Paddy but they got this hit by going pretty hard against Maori over the water rights issue, and getting pretty tough on beneficiaries, again. Not sure the Left has an adequate counter for either of those yet.
Interesting to see Maggie Barrie stepping into the ring.
After Conference National are really emboldened. Apparently there was a great celebrity debate in which Key was mercilessly lampooned, and they all took it in great humour.
2014 is definitely not there for the taking – it is there for forcing out of their cold dead hands.
“they got this hit by going pretty hard against Maori over the water rights issue, and getting pretty tough on beneficiaries, again. Not sure the Left has an adequate counter for either of those yet.”
I don’t suppose they’ve tried sticking up for maori and beneficiaries, have they?
You know, like a left-wing party might.
Of course not but what else can you expect of a right wing party that’s catering to the right while trying to appear left?
The Waitakere Myth is neither Maaori nor a beneficiary. ‘Nuff said.
Your are too generous AD. By far.
Perhaps the voters cannot envision Labour winning?
Perhaps the voters cannot see what is different about Labour now from what it was the last time they rejected us?
What is different about Labour now from what it was the last time they rejected us?
Nothing. Same team, slightly different face. That is why we are still behind in the polls from where we were in 2008. If you keep doing he same thing, you keep getting the same result.
…they got this hit by going pretty hard against Maori over the water rights issue,
So did the Labour government, if you remember. Helen Clark sneered that she’d rather talk to Shrek the sheep than meet any of the Maori protestors (more than twenty thousand of them) in Wellington. She also got the likes of Trevor Mallard and Clayton Cosgrove to regularly make anti-Maori statements.
and getting pretty tough on beneficiaries, again.
You mean, getting tough on the poor. The rich beneficiaries are being looked after very well indeed. How much tax did they get out of paying in the last three years, I wonder?
Not sure the Left has an adequate counter for either of those yet.
How about: speaking out against bigots like Don (Enoch) Brash instead of panicking every time someone like him stirs up racial animosity? How about speaking out for the poor and oppressed instead of anxiously trying to show how “tough” you can be on them?
Don’t expect any change Paddy, watching labour reminds me of Telecom under Gattung,
She was chosen by the incumbent fat cats to do as they say not what actually was required to grow the business…..unlike Telecom there’s no pot of gold from Joyce waiting for them just minor party oblivion.
Aye TC but when you think back to the leadership campaign and who was supporting Shearer you really have to question the sanity of many in Labour’s caucus.
When right wingers like Slater, Farrar, Tamihere, Matthew Hooton, Michelle Boag and John Tamihere stood up and said that Shearer would be the best leader for Labour they should have smelled a rat and gone for Cunliffe.
In order to control any given entity, you simply have to control key elelements.
In this case its the senior Labour MPs, and the strategy people such as Pagani et al.
Job done, really easy, Labour supporters aint ever getting “their party” back!
The only reason people can’t understand this is because they simply can’t accept that our “democracy” is a sham!
Its done, finished, until people wake up, and get very vocal/visible, in real life, not on the fucken net!
That’s a bit harsh, Trevor’s been working really hard on his figure.
And until they get rid of Shearer and co, that’s where it’s going to stay in the doldrums. When are Labour going to realise that the experiment of silence and kissing up to Key does not work. Oh well they are now Nat lite, and not worth voting for. So a lot of non voters from last time are just shrugging their shoulders and saying that they won’t bother to vote next time too. And this time it really is their own fault. And now they want to be able to lock an incompetent in as leader, and make it so that you would have to lever them out with Dynamite and a crow bar. I am sorry, but at the moment they do not deserve the support that they are getting from us, as they are clearly interested in following their own agenda’s and to hell with their supporters.
More than “ä wake up call” is wanted – we have been demanding this for years! Labour requires arousal from a comatose state, a condition that might take long, even for ever!
Here is the real ‘imperative’ in the poll,
”This is the first time the New Zealand Roy Morgan poll has measured support for this new party”, unquote,
Perhaps the 3% of support magically appeared for the Conservative Party in the past 2 weeks, or was it there all the time,
3rd option, Roy’s pulling your left one,(with a small rate of success i cannot at the present register as a %),
Riffmatic and stuff aint my strong suit so one of the people what’s brainy in that area might be able to tell us all what would have to happen within a poll for the sudden emergence at 3% of ‘another’ Party,.
What the latest poll smells like from here is a ‘jack up’ pure and simple, the Right simply positioning itself early for the 2014 election where it needs coalition partners on the right with a chance of providing at least 1 extra seat off the back of a donated Electorate seat from National,
Where a % of support may have evaporated from Labour/Green, (they both lost in this poll),is in the bizaare announcement from both Shearer and Norman that they have no plans to buy back the assets now being stolen by National on behalf of it’s 40% support base,
That from both Labour and the Greens after months of protest by opponents of asset sales was a grand kick in the balls and now has me re-considering my voting options…
I would have thought the margin of error would make such small percentages not that meaningful at this stage.
The rumor in Wellington is that Nationals own polling has them bouncing around on their traditional base 40-42%,
But, Roy Morgan had to move things around a bit in this poll to accommodate the insertion of the Conservative Party for the first time,
For National to Govern after the 2014 election, National themselves know that they are going to need more than Banks and the ‘Hairdo’ + the ‘Poodles’ even if they all keep the seats that they presently hold there’s a 99% chance that none of them will gather further electoral support,
So, in order for it to be viable for National to ‘give away’ another of it’s safe electorate seats there need be every chance that ‘the Party’ it plans on gifting that seat to has every chance,(in the minds of National’s core vote) of bringing at least one more MP into the Parliament riding the coat tails of the gifted National held electoral seat,
With the numbers at where i see them now the Party gifted that seat by National would have to gain at least 2 more seats off of the MMP % of Party votes for the present little jack-up to be of use to them,
The latest Roy Morgan is simply an attempt to facilitate the above,(ie: give a Party with Zilch media attention oxygen), rather than the usual play the margin of error always showing the party’s of the right from the high side of the margin of error while showing the party’s of the left from the low side of that margin of error,
Once they have ensconced ‘the Conservatives’ in the polls as a viable 3%, (to Nationals core vote),and, given that party oxygen and television airtime Roy can go back to business as usual as far as manipulative polls goes….
Stephen Gough, AKA The Naked Rambler
The strangest little story is going on in Scotland. Stephen Gough has a mission to walk around naked. Something along the lines of people are good, people are their bodies so bodies are good it’s quite an involved, but at the same time simple realisation for him. So he walks naked. He’s gone from Land’s End to John O’Groats twice. Pyschologically, he’s fine.
The problem is in Scotland he keeps getting arrested for breaching the peace, he defends himself naked, goes to prison naked, and determines to walk out of there naked – then he is promptly arrested again. He wants to walk home to the South of England – naked. The upshot is this has been going on for 6 years. That’s right – 6 years in prison, in virtual solitary confinement, for living his belief that the human body is not offensive and to believe it is isn’t rational. This truth means he walks up and down the country naked.
The prison management and police came to some agreement and a few days ago he managed to walk from Perth to Dunfermline, where someone complained and he was arrested again, 3 days after leaving prison. Currently he’s waiting for his court date. It appears if he can make it to the English border he’ll be ok because the interpretation of the law is more liberal. In Scotland it’s a theoretical idea that he might cause offense, in England you don’t get arrested unless it actually causes offense to sombody.
There’s something philosophically pure about this that the legal system, even ones that use actual offense as the criteria for arrest, can’t handle.
But if he was rambling in Europe it’s likely he wouldn’t even get a mention. Not sure how he’d do in New Zealand.
I can admire the sentiment on living a conscious and considered life, looking critically at society. However, I don’t really understand the desire to walk around naked, especially somewhere like Scotland, the north of England, or anywhere in Scotland or England in winter.
The conscious mind is always clothed in language, and the Naked Rambler. needs to explain why he is walking naked to make his point.
Going naked is reactive against society’s norms, and is not proactively living as you want.
James Lovelock may have backed off that Climate Change is affecting us hard and rapidly, but it’s still advancing worrisomely:
Greenland ice sheet melted at unprecedented rate during July
Scientists at Nasa admitted they thought satellite readings were a mistake after images showed 97% surface melt over four days
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/24/greenland-ice-sheet-thaw-nasa#
The RNZ Morning Report item on the progress of Sue Moroney’s paid parental leave bill yesterday, shows yet again how National is truly the nasty party. it’s the first bill reported on in the Parliament sends three members’ bills to select committee @8.13am.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/20120726
Sue Goodhew had the gall to criticise Labour for spending recklessly and wanting to spend on something because it was a good idea, whether or not it was affordable! Jacinda Ardern sounds like she delivered a great speech, in spite of the Nat MPs shouting out that she wasn’t qualified to comment because she doesn’t have children….. “children or coal”.
NAct continue to criticise the opposition for things they are guilty of….. they have become frighteningly Orwellian.
And the Herald has an article on Maggie Barry’s “childless” snipe at Ardern & a poll about it:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10822282
I would have thought an MP getting their information from comprehensive research, reports etc on such issues, is better than taking just one woman’s experience. Furthermore, Barry shows why it is a relevant issue to Ardern personally, because, at any time, she can/could be making a decision as to if/when to have children.
Barry…. a light weight intellectually, and, just plain nasty.
Maggie & National just loses the vote of many swinging female voters who are not mothers yet. I can but hope.
The Herald on this (and they have a poll on it):
Barry is right, Labour can do it dirty too, but that doesn’t excuse her for unnecessary nastiness like this. Nothing is gained and respect is lost for the taunter.
I agree with Mallard’s statement on it.
🙄
+1…
The Speaker has released the names of Lobbyists with security access cards to Parliament. And interesting list, with those representing interests in representing financial institutions or (largely unsustainable kinds of) energy companies/interests, or backgrounds supporting business and the National Party in the majority:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10822271
I had to look up some of these entities:
Saunders & Unsworth (right leaning Lobbyist organisation)
http://www.sul.co.nz/page/home.aspx
(Commercial & Public Law)
http://www.franksogilvie.co.nz/
(foregrounds finance company cases)
http://www.minterellison.co.nz/
(represents “New Zealand’s leading corporations and financial institutions.”)
http://www.russellmcveagh.com/
Then there’s Sky TV & Vector.
There are 2 people from the CTU with access cards, but it doesn’t really provide much balance to the other corporate/business entities that dominate.
Why would Philippa Falloon and Jane Kidd still want access to Parliament ?
Sky TV sticks out a mile here. Why does our monopoly pay broadcaster have free access to Parliament?
Lady Jane Kidd? As in married to Doug Kidd? Is she the one who he left his first wife for?
For some insight into Russell McVeagh, (McLeech), Thirty Pieces of Silver By Anthony Molloy QC, is great reading.
Also McLeech just happen to be representing King Salmon who are applying through the EPA to expand their Dirty, Disease ridden salmon farms in the Marlborough Sounds.
Derogatory comment about female opposition party members “not having children” is nothing new from the National Party.
Weren’t they always making snide remarks about Helen Clark along the same lines ?
Yes, the Nats like to keep gender stereotypes in place, and for women to keep their (in Nat eyes) subordinate position as mothers. And they tend to use women to police other women in doing this (see Paula Benefit’s track record)…… unless they are a woman with a Taser, who is prepared to crush cars (preferably by making themselves a spectacle in fetishist high heels).
And they do not have a good record in supporting women with children, especially if they are on low incomes.
Also in parliament yesterday:
Also unnecessary and nasty.
🙄
Not exactly parallel. The swipe at Ardern (as a working woman) was personal and targeting supporting women (of child-bearing age) who are the least powerful sex in the Nat scheme of things. Cosgrove was attacking a triumphalist party who have a strong record in government of anti-democratic policies and legislation.
Although, I’m not that keen on such hyperbolism or use of that extreme metaphor, which will probably launch me into mod if I name it.
I agree that the swipe at Ardern was quote a bit worse because it was personal.
Mallard’s tweet was a tad ironic:
“…parliamentarians should know better than to criticise each other…”
– but correct when read in full.
Do Not Feed The Tory.
Plus 1…
Seen! Don’t usually, won’t again.
$:)
Or the bully.
…unnecessary and nasty.
Perhaps it has escaped your notice, but the Key regime and its key hatchet men (Joyce, Collins, Carter) are nasty in extremis.
I don’t like it whoever does it. And despite some opposition to criticising Barry on KB it’s not all one way there:
“This is a brainfart by Maggie Barrie.”
“These stupid remarks reflect on the party reputation, as has been the case with liebour, and rightly so.”
“maggies comments were a bit crap”
I do agree with you that they (and we) should keep their exchanges civil and polite. Otherwise it descends into a rabble very quickly.
Where you been M? PG got banned and most of us decided the best way to deal to his return was to ignore him.
Suits me. Except they can’t even keep their word on that.
Sort of proves where the real thread disruption comes from.
– 🙄 –
🙄
😮
– 🙄
That seems to work quite well, and, is far more entertaining than was occurring befor…
+5
Maggie Barry is a nasty little common gardener. It seems that many people resort to just this sort of personal attack because they do not have the intellectual capability to argue the actual policy under debate.She is a nasty vindictive piece of work. The women of the National Party are all the same.A gaggle of shrews all vying to be Apha female in order to impress the little man.Wonder what he has been promising them?
And women keep voting National. And I know lots of younger women who do too. Go figure what the hell they are all thinking.
If my former flatmate is anything to go by, they simply buy all of National’s brighter future tripe and don’t know anything about any of the people involved or any of the policies and what they mean.
She works in ECE and was very angry about the 2010 budget. I suggested to her not to vote National next time; not sure how (or if) she voted in 2011.
Could be that they identify with the hetero women in National rather than Street, Wall etc?
You are so right about the Alpha females of National, trying to out macho one another. Whilst driving in the last few days (a rare event for me) Paula (lard arse) Bennett came on the radio and said words to the effect “We are going to take the benefit away from those people on the run from the police”….the shrill refrain followed by a giggle Dr Evil would have been proud of.
My heart sank, is this the type of glib nonsense our leaders are reduced to I thought. Such a stupid statement by such an ill educated and pig ignorant bully. So lets break it down a little:
* on the run from the Police….who decides who is on the run, or just not around etc?
* on the run…does that mean guilty prior to charge or court? Or is that just assumed?
* does guilty of an offense mean you should be kicked off of a benefit? Is Social Development now an arm of Corrections / Justice?
* does Paula think that some cop stating you are on the run from the law means that you must be guilty and therefore to be stripped of your rights as a citizen at her whim?
* benefit stopped as above…what happens to dependents? Or are they guilty by association?
In short this bitch is playing fast and loose with the rights of the citizen, she is well out of order. Where are Shearer and Parker when you really need them to stand up?
the twitter hashtag #maggiebarrystandingorders is providing some real gems! My favourite so far: “You can only talk about asset sales if you have three TradeMe stars or more. #maggiebarrystandingorders”
My favourite
#maggiebarrystandingorders
Maggie Barry seems quite happy to talk about euthanasia. Maybe it’s a cry for help
Only MPs named Sarah can talk about CERA
MPs wanting to talk about taser will have to have been tased.
Maggie, I have 2 children so can talk about Paid Parental Leave twice as much.
Maggie the boys lusted after, the middle aged men swooned, she of the fabulous red hair, such a flower, a blossom. We wise gardeners know that such beauties as anenome, clematis, daffodil, wisteria, lily etc are all poisonous. To quote the Bard “This potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit”:
Then muck raking would be her strong suit.
For some reason too many women appear to be lovingly obsessed with Key – many outwardly attractive people are sinister behind the facade.
So Banks is in the clear.
Short-term win but medium-term loss for National. They want Colin Craig, not the walking corpse of ACT.
Paul Goldsmith won’t be happy!
Not so much cleared as not proven. Insufficient evidence.
John Banks cleared! Whod a thunk it!
Looks like Banks got off on a technicality:
How fucked is that?
Didn’t Banks also sign the Hullich dodgy prospectus too?
“Police said they had established Mr Banks personally solicited donations which were subsequently recorded as anonymous” (Herald)
The opposition should be able to use that. “Acceptable to personally solicit, Prime Minister? Are these the standards now?”
Should be able, but probably won’t.
Well, the government’s good news lasted about ten minutes …
From Red Alert, here are the new private members’ bills, drawn from the ballot today:
State-Owned Enterprises and Crown Entities (Protecting New Zealand’s Strategic Assets) Amendment Bill (Clayton Cosgrove)
Resource Management (Restricted Duration of Certain Discharge and Coastal Permits) Amendment Bill (Catherine Delahunty)
Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill
Ombudsmen (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill (Shane Jones)
Minimum Wage Amendment Bill (David Clark)
No Right Turn says “It’s all on.” See italics!
i.e. Key (and yes, Shearer) now have to stop mucking around and vote Yes or No to marriage equality. Stand by for more squirming …
And now the media have picked this up.
Banks’ “win” will get a headline for a few hours. Louisa Wall’s win will make headlines for months.
Now all we need is for MPs who favour marriage equality to say so – without waffle and weasel-words. Plus, the inevitable bonus of Craig and Tamaki and co ranting against this. Bigots being exposed, and ultimately, losing. With Key pandering to both sides.
It’s a very good day!
The problem is that although Labour think this Bill is the most important thing to happen bloody near forever, nobody else really gives a stuff. That is the answer to previous questions as to why women identify with Key and why young women identify with National, they simply have more important things in common to worry about (like children).
Labour have isolated themselves into an “identity politics” party at the expense of wider support.
It’s not a question of “the most important thing”.
It’s a private members’ bill, and a conscience vote. Opposition MPs don’t get to write the budget, decide policy direction, or do much at all. This is one of the few things they can do. Yesterday’s double win was a good example.
If there are easy votes in opposing this, National (i.e. Key) will oppose it. But there aren’t any more. So the law will pass, because it is now on the right side of public opinion. That’s good, right?
Human rights used to be considered fairly important but then we got a serious case of neo-liberalism and now everyone seems to have more important things to worry about like feeding themselves.
Wonder why that is…
Labour can’t seem to see that though grumpy. Identity politics seems to be all they have left.
Already answered at 1.35. Keep up.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7354142/Parliament-to-vote-on-gay-marriage-bill
That Stuff link (now updated) shows why this bill is not just morally right … it’s also good politics:
Watch the Nats run for cover …
Environment minister Amy Adams said she would ”give it some thought.”
”My initial view is that what we have seems to be working pretty well, but I’m not taking a position at this stage,” Adams said.
Health minister Tony Ryall said he wanted to look ”at exactly what it is before we make a decision on that.” He refused to say if he supported gay marriage.
New Plymouth MP Jonathan Young said he had no comment – other than he would canvas the views of his constituents.
Defence minister Jonathan Coleman said he wanted to read the bill before forming a view.
Translation – As soon as Key gives them the nod, they will (miraculously) make up their minds.
Get a bulk order of popcorn, this is gonna be fun.
In Maggie Barry world will they only be able to discuss Gay Marriage if they have a same sex partner. I get so confused about the rules coming from the Nasties.
Good, this obviously means I am allowed an opinion again on education, even though I am not a teacher. Yay.
When were you not allowed an opinion?
Every bloody five minutes on here……
If his, or anyone’s, opinion gets shot to pieces by logic and fact then they should probably change their opinion – not complain that they can’t have an opinion.
Looking forward to taking on the god-botherers over gay marriage. Its going to be a big scrap, like smacking was 5 years ago..
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/the-anti-semitism-that-goes-unreported-1.452594
The anti-Semitism that goes unreported
The daily dose of terror inflicted on these Semites isn’t noticed by most Jews – even though the incidents resemble stories told by our grandparents.
by Amira Hass, Haaretz, July 18, 2012
Here’s a statistic that you won’t see in research on anti-Semitism, no matter how meticulous the study is. In the first six months of the year, 154 anti-Semitic assaults have been recorded, 45 of them around one village alone. Some fear that last year’s record high of 411 attacks – significantly more than the 312 attacks in 2010 and 168 in 2009 – could be broken this year.
Fifty-eight incidents were recorded in June alone, including stone-throwing targeting farmers and shepherds, shattered windows, arson, damaged water pipes and water-storage facilities, uprooted fruit trees and one damaged house of worship. The assailants are sometimes masked, sometimes not; sometimes they attack surreptitiously, sometimes in the light of day.
There were two violent attacks a day, in separate venues, on July 13, 14 and 15. The words “death” and “revenge” have been scrawled in various areas; a more original message promises that “We will yet slaughter.”
It’s no accident that the diligent anti-Semitism researchers have left out this data. That’s because they don’t see it as relevant, since the Semites who were attacked live in villages with names like Jalud, Mughayer and At-Tuwani, Yanun and Beitilu. The daily dose of terrorizing (otherwise known as terrorism) that is inflicted on these Semites isn’t compiled into a neat statistical report, nor is it noticed by most of the Jewish population in Israel and around the world – even though the incidents resemble the stories told by our grandparents.
The day our grandparents feared was Sunday, the Christian Sabbath; the Semites, who are not of interest to the researchers monitoring anti-Semitism, fear Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Our grandparents knew that the order-enforcement authorities wouldn’t intervene to help a Jewish family under attack; we know that the Israel Defense Forces, the Israel Police, the Civil Administration, the Border Police and the courts all stand on the sidelines, closing their eyes, ….
Read more….
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/the-anti-semitism-that-goes-unreported-1.452594
so for a bit of light relief who is going to support the WWF in their call for China, Vietnam and Thailand to do something about their contribution to Elephant and Rhinoceros extinction threats.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1341612018.html
The smearing of Julian Assange by the Guardian
So I’ve read it all again, again. This time in English. Before I’d stuck to the Swedish versions of the leaked police interviews to make sure I was going to the closest source. The translation into English is good and accurate, in my opinion. Here’s the link…
http://rixstep.com/1/20110204,04.shtml
It’s all here, virtually everything I tried to get the Guardian, the Independent, the Observer, the New Statesman interestsed in examining.
One’s struck by lots of things in the police interveiws. Firstly the Swedish police can conduct telephone interviews in the case, as they’ve done with several of the ‘witnesses’, without the need to arrest anyone, so why not Assange?
The almost total lack of any witnesses or evidence to confirm that any crime actually took place, apart from the statements of the two women involved, and they are ‘tainted’ and arguably wouldn’t stand up in court to cross-examination, even in Sweden, which is why the first prosecutor in Stockholm dropped the case like a hot stone.
The two women did not go to the police and claim that Assange attacked, asssaulted, used violence, or raped them. And they should know. ….
Learn more by clicking on the following….
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1341612018.html
Another cut&paste I see.
By the way, what’s the provenance of the transcripts? I’ve not seen it mentioned that they’d been leaked before. I’d hate for someone to think that I just took random internet websites at face value.
You’ll notice that at the end of the post, I wrote that one could learn more by clicking onto the Media Lens site, and I helpfully provided a hyperlink.
Maybe you missed it.
I did click on it.
And the rixstep link.
No evidence whatsoever that transcripts had been leaked. How do you know that this isn’t just Assange fanfic?
No evidence whatsoever that transcripts had been leaked.
They were leaked, all right. That’s an English translation.
How do you know that this isn’t just Assange fanfic?
It’s not. Unlike the fictional “case” against Assange, this leaked evidence stands on its merits: it has not been refuted.
But what a neat and nasty little propaganda coinage: “Assange fanfic”.
It’s demeaning to his defenders on two levels:
1.) The FAN part of “fanfic” implies that, as well as being “celebrities like Jemima Khan”, Assange’s principled defenders (Chomsky, Pilger, Maguire, Ellsberg, and millions more) are merely “fans”;
2.) The FIC part of “fanfic” implies that Assange’s defence is fictional, and fraudulent.
Neat propaganda, but shallow, and utterly without merit—just like the fictional “case” against Assange.
So your evidence of the authenticity of these transcripts is that the Swedish government hasn’t commented on the accuracy of internet documents that claim to be leaked evidence in ongoing investigations?
And I wasn’t suggesting Chomsky or Pilger invented the transcripts. Just that some little internet groupie who bought a “team assange” tshirt might have wanted to write their own Shades of Grey.
Do you have any evidence whatsoever that any or all witness interviews have been leaked? And that this “transcript” is accurate?
And even if the link IS true and accurate (doubtful), do you seriously have no qualms at all about publicly distributing the evidence gathered in ongoing police investigations into sexual assault? IMO, a group prepared to do that would be just as willing to fabricate “transcripts” to help defend their cause. The ends justify the means, and all that.
“… millions more …”
I imagine Assange’s supporters would number in the dozens nowadays. For some reason people tend to go off cowards who run away rather than face the consequences of their own sleazy actions. Those who have gone off him recently include most of the people that you list as being his supporters. They were helping him and showing a remarkeable degree of trust right up until he did a runner and blew the money they’d put up as security against him bottling out.
On the up side, if he ever needs a bed for the night in NZ, I’m sure he’ll find you most obliging, Mozza. If you know what I mean 😉
I imagine Assange’s supporters would number in the dozens nowadays.
His supporters include the most admired and principled political dissidents in the world. And millions more, of course. But feel free to go ahead and pretend otherwise.
For some reason people tend to go off cowards who run away rather than face the consequences of their own sleazy actions.
His “sleazy actions” were to sleep with groupies. I’ll bet you would do the same if you ever did anything brave enough to give you the heroic status that Assange has earned. There is no evidence that he did anything illegal—but you would know that if you did any serious reading on the subject.
Those who have gone off him recently include most of the people that you list as being his supporters.
Oh really? And your evidence for this is…. what, exactly?
Just so everyone is clear on the new convention here:
Documents or links stating anything helpful to Assange’s defence shall be referred to as dubious or as fiction.
Documents or links supporting the sexual allegations made against Assange shall be considered serious or factual.
Anyone whose behaviour does not conform to this new protocol should be considered a rape apologist.
Clear, everyone?
Seriously, CV? Morrissey has been spamming the Open Mikes for days now with copypasted Assange defence crap. When asked to actually establish provenance for his sources, he cannot.
Meanwhile, we’ve already had an epic thread wherein plenty of explanatory articles have been linked to and generally brushed away by Morrissey, yourself, et al because … well … Sweden should just cede its legal sovereignty, and Zionism, and also “sex makes fools of us all.”
Yeah, but it’s the people who want Assange held accountable for his actions who are just meanies.
Ever considered that maybe the way rape culture oppresses and victimizes women might be a little bit more important than how much it ~hurts your feelings~ to be called a rape apologist when you’re indulging in rape apologism?
So all you are interested in is Assange being held accountable, yeah? Hey I go with that 100%.
If Sweden can give an assurance that they aren’t going to ship Assange off to Guantanamo Bay asap – a pretty easy statement to make I would have thought – than I agree Assange should be shipped off to Sweden asap to face the legal music.
If Sweden made such a statement, Ecuador would have no more grounds to protect Assange in their embassy either.
But yeah, why don’t you keep focussing on protecting Sweden’s ‘legal sovereignty to ship Assange to a US military prison anytime they want to’.
Why didn’t the US extradite him from the UK?
Not sure. Factors might include:
– Level of media attention
– Lack of UK political agreement
– Strength of public support for Assange
– Complications from UK judicial oversight
Regardless, Sweden should give Assange (and the rest of the w/orld) an assurance that he will not be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay asap.
Not sure. Factors might include:
– Level of media attention
– Lack of UK political agreement
– Strength of public support for Assange
– Complications from UK judicial oversight
– becue Sweden doesn’t have any media?
– doesn’t do shit against a red notice
– damned Assande-hating swedes
– because the one and only time Swedish inteligence services broke the rules (just after 9/11) the courts didn’t get involved?
And face it – the Swedes haven’t shot any electricians since 9/11, have they?
So getting an assurance should be a walk in the park right, McFlock? One little assurance and the Ecuador embassy has no more grounds to protect Assange.
You get what you want: Assange with no where else to run to.
Did the UK provide the same assurance?
A fair legal system means favours aren’t made just because you’re famous.
An assurance not to be shipped to Guanatano Bay under the pretext of routine investigative questioning on something completely irrelevant is not that big a “favour” now, is it.
And you would get what you want: Assange kicked out of Ecuador embassy protection and on a plane to Sweden.
Did the UK give the same assurance?
Still: the US’s extradition treaty with the UK gives them pretty much carte blanche (thanks TB…), Sweden’s less so. Why would the US want him in a country it will be harder to extradite him from?
But I’m not getting into this, I’ve seen the epic threads…
Run awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Morrissey has been spamming the Open Mikes for days now with copypasted Assange defence crap.
The examples of “spam” I posted were: (1) an official release by Women Against Rape, expressing the gravest concern about the sincerity and the truthfulness of the “allegations” against Assange; (2) a meticulously detailed Media Lens exposé of the (so-called) liberal media’s parroting of official lies about Assange; and (3) Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire’s plea to the Ecuadorean government to grant Assange political asylum.
If that’s “spam” then Garth George is a brilliant journalist, Christine (Spankin’) Rankin is a child advocate, and Peter “Possum” Dunne is a profile in courage.
When asked to actually establish provenance for his sources, he cannot.
I can, and I did. It’s interesting, on the other hand, that the persecutors of Assange have provided not a scintilla of evidence.
….generally brushed away by Morrissey, yourself, et al because … well … Sweden should just cede its legal sovereignty, and Zionism, and also “sex makes fools of us all.”
I’ve never said or written any of those things. You’re just making it up as you go. Have you considered a job with the Key administration?
Yeah, but it’s the people who want Assange held accountable for his actions who are just meanies.
There is no evidence against him at all, as you would know if you read up on this travesty with any seriousness at all. However, there is of course evidence that he did what a journalist should do, and exposed massive state crimes being perpetrated by (among others) the United States and its satellite regimes. Those are the actions that they want to punish him for; but they were not illegal, of course. Hence the invention of these sex allegations.
The prosecutors of Assange seem to think there is probable cause. Contrary to what teamassange groupies might think, the interwebz are not the judiciary.
What “provenance” did you provide? A link to some random web page? No other sources to suggest that the swedes were investigating a massive leak of documents relating to sexual assault investigations? None of the witnesses confirming the contents of the transcript? No swedish “bradass87”?
The faithful have been fabricating icons and supporting evidence for millenia. And not everything on the internet is true. All I want is some corroborating evidence.
Sweden should give Assange an assurance that he will not be shipped out to Guantanamo, the Ecuadorians will have no grounds to keep him in their embassy, and then you will get exactly what you want – Assange in front of Swedish criminal investigators.
So an entire Swedish legal system should compromise because some guy jumped bail in the UK?
I much prefer the option of patient justice – if he ever wants to go anywhere in the developed world, he has Swedish and British fugitive notices to worry about, as well as US. And if Ecuador wants to build international links, well they’ve got him on tap, haven’t they. A cross between Carlos the Jackal and Paul Gadd.
Promising to not ship someone to military internment in Guantanamo Bay on completely unrelated matters can compromise a so-called justice system?
So you don’t want to get Assange in front of Swedish criminal investigators asap? You prefer to keep the Swedish women complainants waiting while some kind of international espionage intrigue gets played out?
Nope.
A promise not to extradite someone to country B is a compromise of the justice system:
A promise not to deport straight to guantanamo means a promise not to extradite to the US, period.
A promise not to extradite to the US means a promise not to extradite to the US even on charges that are legitimate, such as if he raped someone in the US (if he’s ever been there).
A banket promise not to extradite to the US means a promise not to extradite to any nation that might give him to the US. Even if they, too, have 100% legitimate charges.
Basically, you’re asking the Swedes to guarantee that he’ll never be deported to damned near anywhere on the panet, no matter what he’s accused of and no matter how much evidence and no matter what international obligations.
But there’s no compromise if they look at requests on a case by case basis. Just like the UK did.
But I’d actually prefer it if Assange decided to take responsibility for what he did, and front up to face the charges. The dangers of plane flight back to Sweden would be a bigger threat to his life and freedom than the danger of rendition to the states.
Hey McFlock – where did you put your concern that the women complainants in Sweden get justice quickly, on that priority list of international law, intrigue and espionage?
Oh yeah I see now, you added it as a footnote: Assange should just man up and take the risk of being shipped out to Guantanamo Bay held under military arrest on the chin, as a matter of course.
I’m sure he’ll take that candid suggestion under advisement.
Don’t be dumb.
The choice between waiting for justice and compromising it permanently should be no choice at all.
Why didn’t the UK send him to the states again? Why are the swedes more likely to?
Yeah McFlock, you’re all for justice eh?
You want to protect Sweden’s justice system and you want to protect Sweden’s sovereign right to extradite persons anywhere in the world that they are empowered to, for any reasons their justice system and various international treaties allow.
You want to protect the integrity of both the Swedish justice systems and international law. Is that right, eh? Are you sure that’s all?
I want justice systems to work with integrity. Extradition is part of that. That way they can hold all criminals accountable for their actions, and ensure that the innocent aren’t convicted unjustly.
That will improve public confidence in the justice system, so the public would be more likely to report crme of all types – especially sexual crimes, which have a microscopic reporting nature.
That wil reduce crime.
Is there anything inconsistent in all that? What more do you think I want?
oh, by the way:
Why didn’t the UK send him to the states again?
Why are the swedes more likely to?
Are you truly genuine about that?
Specifically, do you believe that in addition to extradition, asylum from politically motivated prosecution is another legitimate part of the system of international law?
And if so, do you then accept that Ecuador has the full right (under established international law) to provide Assange with temporary refuge while its government assesses his individual case on its individual merits?
So why didn’t he ask for political asylum in the UK? They take asylum-seekers, too. Like Sweden does, interestingly enough.
I’m not sure I’ve ever criticised Ecuador’s right to consider and grant asylum. I’m criticising Assange for hiding behind conspiracy theories to avoid a sexual assault investigation.
oh, by the way:
Why didn’t the UK send him to the states again?
Why are the swedes more likely to?
To be clear then McFlock:
You accept that seeking asylum from politically motivated prosecution is a legitimate part of established international law. Just like extradition is.
You further accept that Ecuador has the right to give Assange temporary refuge while it assesses the merits of his case on its individual merits.
And since you said that you would be very patient with the necessarily slow movement of complex legal processes (in order to protect the integrity of the international justice system was your rationale), you will no doubt accept Assange exercising his rights under international law to request asylum, and for Ecuador to exercise its sovereign rights to assess that request thoroughly and with due process.
Am I correct, or have I misread your stance of principal on international law as being more genuine than it really is?
Nah, you’ve got a slide in there.
I believe in asylum, I even believe in Assange’s right to claim asylum for protection against political prosecution.
So why didn’t he ask for asylum from the UK? What was the ruling when his lawyers brought up political oppression in the extradition hearing. Did they? The UK can grant asylum too.
He’s claiming asylum from country C because country B decided to extradite him to country A on probable cause for investigation into sexual assault and rape.
I believe in Assange’s right to claim asylum as protection from political persecution. I don’t believe in his right to pervert the principle of asylum by using it to avoid answering questions about sexual assaults. To me, it looks suspiciously like the latter.
So:
Why didn’t the UK send him to the states again?
Why are the swedes more likely to?
and I’ll add:
why didn’t he ask for asylum in the UK?
So you are willing to wait for Ecuador to do what it needs to, in order for them to properly and legally assess Assange’s request for political asylum using thorough due process?
Lets wait and see what happens then. You won’t try and rush or prejudge the issues will you?
Ah fuck it, I’m off to bed.
I have no choice but to wait for Ecuador’s decision. Interwebz arguments do not substitute for a justice system in any nation.
I do find your hierarchy of competent legal systems intriguing, though:
Sweden is a corrupt politicised pawn of the US satan;
The UK is better than Sweden, but not good enough to be asked for asylum or indeed not extradite to Sweden;
Ecuador is an enlightened nation that will deliver the judgement of Solomon.
Bear in mind that so far Assange has struck out with 2 out of 3 seperate judicial systems. And I get the impression that if Ecuador refuses asylum you’ll be saying “let’s try the next one”. And if he camps further and further down Embassy Row you’ll end up praising the wisdom and justice of the Iranian government.
Why didn’t the UK send him to the states again?
Why are the swedes more likely to?
why didn’t he ask for asylum in the UK?
The justice system by its nature presents individuals with more than one opportunity for their case to be heard. That is what the system of appeals is all about.
I thought you would understand that.
I do.
My point was that it’s all very well for you to ask me to keep an open mind, but the fact is that your mind is closed to the possibility that he did it, knows there is no real risk of being deported to the US by sweden, but is using fear of TPTB as an excuse to avoid accountability for his actions.
Seriously, if that were the true state of affairs, how could someone convince you of it? All courts that rule against him are stooges of US imperialist hegemony. All accusers are ignorantly spreading black propaganda. The most flimsy uncorroborated internet link in his favour proves his innocence. Is there any theoretical way that the logical possibility of his guilt and abuse of asylum could be demonstrated to you, if it were true?
Why didn’t the UK send him to the states?
Why are the swedes more likely to?why didn’t he ask for asylum in the UK?
Yeah they are only silly women making a silly rape complaint. Some things are more important than that when you are taking on the US. Take that Obama.
Yeah they are only silly women making a silly rape complaint.
No, they did no such thing. There have been no rape complaints made against Assange.
I’m interested to know something, my friend: why are you commenting on this topic when you have no idea what you are writing about?
dogma, what you find when solutions never materialize, welcome
to the under perfrorming NZ economy, for decades and decades.
The same trite arguments that miss the essential point about the NZ
economy, that we reward investment in housing over productive endeavors.
But wait its worse.
Values. Glen Owen charity is a role model hang over from the
class system because it reinforces the view that we must be all
wealth to be generous to our lesser citizens. That merit be damned,
wealth is all that matters. Surely to be successful like Nordic nations
we need also to look up to successful people who are fabulously wealth.
In fact its because we speak the same language as Americans, and
their culture dominates ours, and we don’t have Nobel prizes (or wealthy
people who reward intellectualism), that we continue to pick the worse
economic policies for NZ, because some trite US twit says charter schools,
or whatever, is the next cool economic fad.
National and Labour are hollow idiots pandering to poor policy prescriptions
because they can’t beat out the nonsense imported from the US.
+1
The biggest problem for NZs economy (and that of the rest of the world) is that we’ve been rewarding the rich for being rich and not only letting them get away with corruption but giving them multi-million dollar golden handshakes when their hands are caught in the till.
How have we been rewarding the rich for being rich in NZ ?
Massive tax cuts and giving them a wonderful opportunity to buy our infrastructure at basement prices, to name two ways.
Not to mention tax cuts that have to be financed from debt paid for by the rank and file taxpayer….dont give me any crap about the rich paying the most tax.
Actually that’s a good point – where is that dataset that used to be regularly published of the tax take by tax type and income bracket ?
Its now a very real fact, that the artificial construct of a business entity is consider equivalent to a person (SCOTUS), but the greatest burden, tax if you will, upon Mother Earth has not yet been provided with even basic rights. Sue God? NO! Mother Earth should sue the USA.
I’m assuming that most still pay significant tax under the progressive tax system and have also been subject to the same GST rises as everyone else ?
As for the SOE sell down if you’re bemoaning the fact that people can purchase a few thousand dollars worth of shares as a reward for the rich being rich I think you’re being overly bombastic.
1: they pay less tax than they did 5 years ago. That is a “reward”. The poor pay more.
2: Subject to the same GST rises… depending on how they structured their finances, how much goes through companies or trusts, and how much is invested. Unlike the poor, who spend all their money on personal goods and services therefore probably pay 15% of their entire “after tax” income on GST.
3: You might sniff at a few thousand bucks returning 18% not being much of a reward. Alternatively, the other 95% of the country would gratefully appreciate it.
1. How do you know they pay less tax than they did five years ago, they might then again they might not with GST changes and other tweaks in the tax system? As I said there used to be an interesting dataset published by treasury I think on tax by type and income bracket.
2. Again you make assumptions – this may or may not be the case.
3. Are you suggesting that the shares in SOEs being offered are going to return 18% ….fantastic i’ll make sure to invest and if that’s the case you should invest as mush as possible yourself.
1: tax rates are lower in higher brackets
2: indeed. Just as if my lotto numbers come up, I don’t have to collect the winnings.
3: yeah good call – fubared those math alright 🙂 But it’s still an investment that poor people can’t make in infrastructure that everybody already equally owns.
1.Tax rates are lower than they used to be in higher tax brackets, they are still higher in the higher tax brackets and those in the higher brackets still pay the majority of income tax in NZ. I still believe that there is room for a high earners tax bracket in NZ in line with the highest level across the Tasman.
2. Not sure what you’re trying to say here.
3. I’ll bet you that even someone of very very modest means could lend money if they could ensure an 18% return.
1: So because higher earners have a slightly higher tax proportion, the tax cuts they received (coincidentally just before we nosedived into massive deficit) is in no way a reward?
2: they might or might not funnel their spare cash through trusts or companies. Therefore they might ot might not be subject to the same proportion of GST payment. Just as I might or might not choose to pick up my winnings, the prize is still there for me.
3: aye, that’s why I said I fubared the math. But they’re solid investments (barring ToW claims or a leftwing govt getting balls and renationalising at punitive rates). And rich people are the ones with the opportunity to invest – poor people have no assets against which they can borrow to play stockmarket trader.
1. Higher earners pay more tax always have and always should, as I’ve said in the present conditions I think there should be a high earners tax bracket in NZ in line with the highest level across the Tasman.
2. It is illegal to charge non-business expenses to a business
3. I think we’re getting into the argument about what is rich, there are certainly people who wouldn’t have the funds or be able to get the funds to invest, there are also likely to be many who couldn’t be classed as rich who could if they so chose. For those people i wonder if they should be offered to cash in the government’s contribution to their Kiwisaver funds to invest if they so chose ?
1: The question is, if they receive a tax break on what they previously paid – isn’t that a reward? Even if they still pay a higher proportion of tax?
2: Yes. But it’s amazing what counts as a “business expense”.
3: allowing people to use government retirement contributions to help them purchase part of a company they already own via the government? See, “rich” people don’t need to risk their retirement savings in order to buy something that they already owned.
2. anyone who has run a business or worked as a contractor knows to claim back GST and minimize tax as much as possible. It’s prudent business sense to do so.
So the only assumption is that you are assuming that NZ’s middle and upper class are not prudent in business.
There is really no arguing that a high income tax break and a rise in GST hit’s PAYE earners whilst limiting the impact on high income earners.
I’ll think you’ll find that if people are rorting GST they’ll receive a major rodgering from IRD sooner or later. Similarly you’re assuming that the majority of those on more than an average or those on high incomes a making that income through their own business i’m not sure that is the case and even if it is whether you could assume that they are all not paying their fair share of tax.
You’ll need to give me an example on the second point so I can understand what you’re meaning.
The company doesn’t need to be their primary source of income.
Just the mechanism through which they funnel their income, or hold assets in (e.g. Double Dipton and his trust). And it doesn’t need to be illegal rorting, just “minimisation” (as CV sorry, UR, said).
pah, in editing completely stuffed strikethrough tag. 🙄 need coffee……
It’s not hard to rort GST on things that a low income earner couldn’t.
Transport, entertainment costs, furniture. It’s as easy as a couple becoming joint shareholders in your own company, suddenly dinners out are share meetings and offset tax.
Sure not all high income earners run their own trusts or companies (The majority i’ve met do).
But they still did get a tax break anyway while everyone below gets a GST hike. And the people below don’t have the opportunity/means to offset their GST.
No matter whether your rorting the system legally (which isn’t hard to do) or not, it doesn’t change the fact that this is an option generally only available to the wealthier.
holidays are conferences
Come on HS mate, you can’t seriously be trying to insinuate that the higher earners have had equal breaks to those on the lower rates under National.
You really believe that National’s policies are bringing a brighter future for the poor?
270,000 children in poverty, the great exodus of our talented and poor job prospects (unless you are high skilled and white apparently).
Surely a GST rise and a tax break for top earners wouldn’t be considered as rewarding the rich for being rich, would it?
It wouldn’t be a priority if I was in Government with the above environment.
Their policies risk a further exodus of our young and talented. The very young, talented youth who for 20 years our taxes have invested in through one of the OECD’s best education systems. This would be my priority, minimizing a massive loss on investment.
That’s not an assumption any more. We know for a fact that the bludgers are stealing from the rest of us.
How is that relevant to the majority of the ‘rich’ in NZ ?
And for that matter you should probably define rich – McF seems to be implying it’s anyone who used to be on the top tax rate ?
Because we can assume that the majority of the rich in NZ are using similar wealth hiding schemes to minimise taxes.
Aero Noble sentiments indeed
But a lot of the dynamite used in the world today is used to kill other people and dig up vast quantities of minerals for big corporations.
Sweden has its first right wing government in a log time.
so would you trust them .
http://rixstep.com/1/20110130,02.shtml
The Assange Police Protocol: Translator’s Note
30,000 words in five days. Translators normally manage about 2,000 words per day. This feat was by no means a world record but it was difficult and a lot of hard work.
The roughest parts were the transcripts. Transcripts are the next best thing to being there – to having a video recording. The task of the transcriber is to record every non-word, sound, and pause in addition to the actual content, this to as accurately as possible convey the attitude and reactions of the interviewee.
Good translations normally never attempt a ‘word for word’ approach. It’s not only words that differ in different languages – it’s the ideas and concepts as well. The goal of a translator is otherwise to get the idea across rather than produce stilted language no one really grasps. But the translations of the transcripts necessarily took another approach: reproduce all the commas, full stops, ellipses, and even the strange constructs as found in the originals.
There’s only one way to study these documents: as a whole and with the working assumption everyone is telling the truth. Save for several deliberate attempts by Anna Ardin to obfuscate the truth, this approach seems to work.
The ‘case’ (if one dare call it that) hovers on two incidents. One takes place in Enköping in the morning. The two people involved have a simple exchange of two lines each before going at it again for what likely is the fifth time in a long sleepless night. The girl’s just come back to bed after being out early and shopping, the two of them make love again, and start dozing off to sleep.
Suddenly the one starts all over again. The girl senses the man is about to penetrate her. ….
Read more. . . .
http://rixstep.com/1/20110130,02.shtml
Yeah. Read that. Do you have any evidence it’s genuine?
It’s pro-Assange, ergo factual.
If it were anti-Assange, it would obviously be lies, and probably Zionist. (That link may mark the point at which I chose to stop engaging people obviously willing to spin anything they can in order to avoid stating simple facts: “Assange should face the allegations made against him because they are serious allegations, and if the US wanted his ass David Cameron would have served it up to them already.”)
… it would obviously be lies, and probably Zionist.
That’s twice today you’ve tried to trivialize my case by mentioning the word “Zionist”. The fact that I have never said anything like that probably won’t make any difference to you, but I’d like to point it out to serious readers.
I linked to exactly who did say it, Morrissey. Sorry for not actually tarring all you “shut up, all evidence against Assange is lies and if you aren’t pro-Assange you haven’t read anything about the case, except you might have read a lot but it’s all lies if it’s not pro-Assange” fanpeeps with the same brush.
I linked to exactly who did say it, Morrissey.
Yes, it was Vicky, not me. And probably not most of the other supporters of Assange. I’m interested to see that you still chose to include it as one of the arguments you allege his supporters make, in spite of the fact they do not.
Sorry for not actually tarring all you “shut up, all evidence against Assange is lies and if you aren’t pro-Assange you haven’t read anything about the case, except you might have read a lot but it’s all lies if it’s not pro-Assange” fanpeeps with the same brush.
You don’t have to be pro-Assange, but if you are foolish enough to parrot the black propaganda of the U.S. and U.K. governments, then you either have NOT read a lot on this travesty of a case, or you are profoundly corrupt.
The whole issue has become too bound up in absolutes. Of course Assange should comply with the laws of the countries he parades through. Of course he shouldn’t treat women (or anyone else) as though they are disposable. Of course an interview can be carried out by phone. Of course Assange should go to America and martyr himself, and of course the Yankees should stop pretending to occupy the moral high ground.
Of course Ecuador should not let itself be used as a straight man to this clown’s antics. Of course Wikileaks should have properly protected its data from external access and/or betrayal.
Of course Wikileaks can be a force for “good”.
Of course we sound like economists discussing rational actors.
The whole issue has become too bound up in absolutes.
So everything’s relative, is it? The lies told by the authorities and their media vassals like the Guardian, the Murdoch gang and the BBC somehow balance up the exposure of those absolute lies by truth-tellers like Assange and Bradley Manning? It seems that the fact that the U.S. military was absolutely caught out by an absolutely dedicated, absolutely determined journalist is just too much for you to take in, my friend. The only cure for that is more reading. Serious reading, that is.
Of course Assange should comply with the laws of the countries he parades through.
He does comply with the law. There is no evidence he has committed any criminal act. And… he “parades through” countries? Maybe you’ve mixed him up with that fraudster Barack Obama.
Of course he shouldn’t treat women (or anyone else) as though they are disposable.
Who says he does? Take care, my friend, not to automatically believe what government apparatchiks tell you.
Of course Ecuador should not let itself be used as a straight man to this clown’s antics.
So Assange is a “clown” now? A “clown” who “parades” through countries. Now that is a clown with gravitas.
Of course Wikileaks should…
How about dropping the sarcasm? There are enough bewildered people on this forum as it is.
Someone forgot to drink their kool-aid…
”Now the private sector needs to do the sort of things that the private sector claims it can do so particularly well.”
Dunno if this has been posted before, but its worth a second look anyway. I can’t eat your ghost jobs, John.
Speaking of dodgy men doing a runner, Sea Shepherd skipper Paul Watson joins the club.
Serious workplace accidents seem to be running at the pace of about one a day at the moment – I’m sure the market will sort it out.