Open mike 27/05/2010

45 comments on “Open mike 27/05/2010 ”

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1. Tigger 1

   27 May 2010 at 7:55 am

   At last the Bennett privacy complaint resurfaces. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10647715

   Considering she just voted for three strikes I find it alarming that Bennett doesn’t understand that when you do something wrong there is often serious consequences…consequences like paying damages of $15K for hurt and humiliation.
   • Pascal's bookie 1.1

     27 May 2010 at 8:25 am

     Geez, all of a sudden she can talk about the process eh. And it does look like the commissioner agrees that the minister breached the privacy act.

     What’s the bet that fact gets forgotten in the hoopla about a private citizen.

     nasty stuff.
   • BLiP 1.2

     27 May 2010 at 8:51 am

     I wonder if Basher Bennett’s latest outburst isn’t yet another breach of privacy in that these negotiations should – I presume – be confidential until settlement??
     • Tigger 1.2.1

       27 May 2010 at 9:00 am

       If this can’t be resolved then it may go to the Human Rights Review Tribunal if Shroff (Commissioner) thinks privacy was interfered with – which given the circumstances one assumes she does. They could make a legally binding order against Bennett. Of course, the Tribunal now contains such luminaries as Brian Neeson but it would be hard for them to justify declining some compensation here.

       If Bennett is smart she’ll stop whining, pay up and have the matter disappear. Otherwise she’s just giving us more rope to hang her with.
       • JAS 1.2.1.1

         27 May 2010 at 9:29 am

         Clearly the PC has ruled that Bennett breached Fullers privacy, or there would be no suggestion of a settlement, yet once again the media have turned it into a witch-hunt against Fuller. The woman is being publicly persecuted yet again all over the internet thanks to Bennetts statement.
2. exbrethren 2

   27 May 2010 at 8:01 am

   Looks like bully Bennett is digging herself a bigger hole there.

   Carter, Te Heu Heu, Bully, lying John – what a triumphant first post-budget week for the Nats.
3. just saying 3

   27 May 2010 at 9:09 am

   http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1005/S00412.htm

   I hadn’t realised that the budget cut state housing funding from 120 mill to 18 mill.

   Directly affected are the 10,000 on the waiting list.

   Not to mention the loss of potential benefits for all renters of state competition, and the all-but-collapsed building industry, particularly in Auckland.

   Service. Cuts. Are. Happening. – have been for a long time, all over the place. The ones that most affect the “underclass” have been slipping under the radar.
   • JAS 3.1

     27 May 2010 at 9:39 am

     Nor did I realise, they seem to have snuck that one through under the radar. Totally appalling, especially when there are predictions that rents will drastically increase in the private sector rents.
     • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1

       27 May 2010 at 1:39 pm

       Not predictions any more – those rent rises will be a damned certainty now that NACT have ensured that there won’t be any competition.
4. starboard 4

   27 May 2010 at 9:11 am

   ..them there skidmarks leading away from Ms Fullers house… not left behind by Charles Chauvel by any chance…doing a sudden reverse..??
   • Tigger 4.1

     27 May 2010 at 9:26 am

     Chauvel said he gave her advice and help and then put her onto a lawyer. Are MPs no longer allowed to help people in their dealings with government?
     • joe bloggs 4.1.1

       27 May 2010 at 9:55 am

       Are MPs no longer allowed to help people in their dealings with government?

       Of course they are… and they’re also allowed to back-pedal at a hundred miles an hour when the people they’re dealing with are exposed as troughers.

       Chauvel may have given Fuller advice and pointed her in the direction of a lawyer… but he also stated that she wasn’t looking for a cash settlement, and Fuller herself said she was not after a settlement after her emails surfaced.

       I cede Chauvel one point – for finally recognising that he’s on a hiding to nothing in his manipulation of Ms Fuller’s situation, and jumping on the first coach out of town.
       • Tigger 4.1.1.1

         27 May 2010 at 11:45 am

         How is Fuller troughing? She suffered as a result of a breach of privacy. Why should she not be paid damages? And so what if she said she didn’t want money – she’s entitled to change her mind.

         I don’t see Chauvel backpedalling either, that is your interpretation. It looks more like he just took himself out of the situation at an appointed moment.
       • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1.2

         27 May 2010 at 1:41 pm

         She’s (Fuller) not “troughing” – Blinglish and other National and ACT ministers do that. She was being compensated for the harm done her by a criminal (Paula Bennett).
5. jcuknz 5

   27 May 2010 at 9:22 am

   Today’s NYT headlines have an interesting and disturbing article about the impossibility of contraception in Africa and the culture of populations explosion ” If I don’t have a baby every two or three years people will say I am sterile” Many children are a virility sign for the man …..
   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/opinion/20kristof.html?ex=1289966400&en=57fdab5e6fdea4b1&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=OP-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M150-ROS-0510-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click
   • burt 5.1

     27 May 2010 at 8:31 pm

     I wonder if the African govt has considered making it’s WFF package less generous?
     • Anita 5.1.1

       27 May 2010 at 8:33 pm

       the African govt
6. BLiP 6

   27 May 2010 at 9:55 am

   How lovely. National Ltd has today welcomed back the Isreali diplomats while, across the Tasman, our Aussie cousins are learning what its really like dealing with these people.

   You all, I’m sure, will remember a similar incident in New Zealand in 2004 when two Mossad agents, Eli Cara and Uriel Kelman served a whole two months in jail for doing the same thing. A third Mossad agent, Zev William Barkan was confirmed as an Isreali diplomat but he, along with a fourth unnamed agent, escaped scot free.

   No doubt the dignataries at today’s Isreal National Day celebration will be enjoying their cocktails. Meanwhile, the ethnic cleansing trundles along unhindered.
7. I dreamed a dream 7

   27 May 2010 at 10:21 am

   I reckon the Standard can look more into the PEDA handout fiasco. Red Alert has done a piece on it: http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2010/05/26/pacific-economic-development-agency/

   I look forward to see what The Standard can dig up and report 🙂
8. mach1 8

   27 May 2010 at 10:34 am

   Expanding secret actions in the middle east and Israeli war games suggests something a little more ambitious is afoot BLiP.

   The Israeli Threat: An Analysis of the Consequences of an Israeli Strike on Iranian Nuclear Facilities [PDF].
   • Bored 8.1

     27 May 2010 at 12:17 pm

     Bloody hell, the PDF doc is one scary hawkish volume. Looks to me that if its advice is followed, and the implications come to pass we will pretty much have WW3 economically if not entirely militarily. And then if the Pakistanis and Indians get engaged all hell lets lose. Lovely people the Isrealis, world class blackmailers. They might try another option, actually being nice to the Palestinians, dont hope too hard for this though.

     capcha disasters
     • mach1 8.1.1

       27 May 2010 at 12:44 pm

       Well they did try, once, but things didn’t work out too well.

       How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas
9. ianmac 9

   27 May 2010 at 12:45 pm

   3 Strikes Law at Stuff:
   Community Law Canterbury manager Paul O’Neill said the three-strikes rule was a “dumbing down of justice” based on political fearmongering.
   “I find the three-strikes law sickening, cynical and without any evidence or merit,” he said.
   “This is a step too far, and is nasty, nasty stuff.”
   http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/3743509/Legal-experts-find-many-faults-with-new-three-strikes-law
10. Bill 10

    27 May 2010 at 1:50 pm

    Korea

    Funny in a decidedly non ha-ha way that ‘everybody’ is repeating the line that a N. Korean sub sunk a S. Korean frigate and echoing H. Clinton’s calls for action to be taken against N. Korea.

    What we are to believe is that a submarine was operating in some 40 odd meters of water right alongside war games and remained undetected and was able to get away. Think about that. 40 meters. Not very deep. How tall is a sub?

    Won See-hoon, director of South Korea’s National Intelligence said at the time that N. Korea had nothing to do with the sinking.

    The Defence Minister ( Kim Tae-young ) and the Head of Marine Operations (Lee Ki-sik) concurred. And when speculation began to circulate pointing the finger at N. Korea, the Defence Ministry called a press conference to reiterate their position that N. Korea had nothing to do with it.

    But then there was an ‘independent’ and oh so international investigation conducted that included in it’s number the US, Australia, Canada, Sweden and Britain.

    And guess what?

    It found that a N. Korean submarine had torpedoed the frigate. ( Sweden refused to endorse the findings of the investigation).

    Meanwhile“Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama announced on Monday that he would renege on his campaign promise to renegotiate the move of a controversial US airbase off the island of Okinawa.”

    The fact that the US have always used the situation on the Korean Peninsula as an excuse for their presence in Japan and that the Japanese premier had got elected with a ‘We don’t buy that one any more’ line and had pledged to remove the US bases has of course, nothing to do with anything.

    There is a particularly excellent, informative piece on the absurdity of the claims that the N. Koreans sank the frigate here. (which is where a lot of the stuff at the top of this comment comes from) and a run down of the Japanese premiers flip-flop here.

    As for the cranking up of the tensions, well you can look almost anywhere if your thing is to witness the circling chanting of school kids orchestrated from Washington chanting ‘Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!’
    • ianmac 10.1

      27 May 2010 at 2:16 pm

      It crossed my mind that the USA is capable of sacrificing a few South Koreans in order to spark up the dispute so that they could have another excuse to get involved. Conspiracy alarmist. Maybe.
      • Bill 10.1.1

        27 May 2010 at 5:08 pm

        Certainly believable.

        But it’s possible that an accidental sinking was just what the doctor ordered to spin an argument for a continued ‘healthy’ military presence in Japan.

        And Lee Myung-bak wants rid of the ‘Sunshine’ policy…

        Sometimes people with an agenda are simply waiting for an incident to provide them the opportunity to further said objective.

        No need for conspiracies.
    • Draco T Bastard 10.2

      27 May 2010 at 4:18 pm

      There is a particularly excellent, informative piece on the absurdity of the claims that the N. Koreans sank the frigate here.

      From that article:
      It’s unlikely that a single torpedo could split a 1,200 ton warship in two.
      hmmmm….
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV8MF-440xg
      So, yes, it is possible for a single torpedo to break a ship in two. The US developed it in association with Austraila and there’s nothing to stop anyone else from building one (the basic physics are quite simple).

      I’m not disputing the article, I just get a little peeved with broad, and inaccurate, generalisations.
      • Bill 10.2.1

        27 May 2010 at 4:47 pm

        That’s fair comment. I agree with you on the sweeping statements.

        Interestingly, that video adds to the argument that it was not a torpedo. See the damage that torpedo caused? The twisted metal and general wrecking of the vessel?

        If you google Cheonan images and go through them, the evidence of damage is remarkably absent. Even the windows of the bridge look to be in tact…and then there is the fact that all the dead sailors were in the stern of the ship below decks. All of them.

        Pictures of fore… two of and aft

        I can’t see that being the case if a torpedo on a par with the one in the video hit. There’d be bodies from everywhere and a lot of mutilated survivors. Which leads me to remark that ‘our side’ has never fought shy of those evocative photo ops of ‘our’ mangled innocents. Until now, it seems.
        • Bill 10.2.1.1

          28 May 2010 at 10:18 pm

          Them thar barnacles don’t arf grow fast in that there Yellow Sea!

          http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-55107-6.html
11. felix 11

    27 May 2010 at 3:08 pm

    The racist half-wit Hone Carter just relayed the parable about the 10 beer drinkers that half-thinkers like burt like to tell. In parliament.

    Of course he didn’t mention that the tenth man in the story owns the bar and the brewery and the other 9 all work in them.

    What a moron.
    • burt 11.1

      27 May 2010 at 8:50 pm

      Progressive taxation is one thing, having a position on how progressive is another. The real problem with that joke is that it is actually how progressive taxation rate adjustments should work, both going up and going down. If the price went up 10% who would shoulder the biggest chip of that?

      Having no idea what Hone Carter was saying I’ll take a stab. The 10th man in that joke is indeed like the 10% of top tax payers in NZ. You can argue as much as you like between the percentages, some say the top 10% pay 40% of the income tax some say up to 76%. Take 40% or 76% of the income tax away and watch 90% of NZ squirm with rising taxes, council rates, levies, GST, and prices in general.

      I don’t think it’s funny, but it is a point well made to people paying comparatively piss all tax moaning in sniveling policies of envy that they didn’t get the same tax break as the rich prick down the street, or that some rich prick at Telecom got a bigger tax cut than their gross income.
12. Draco T Bastard 12

    27 May 2010 at 4:21 pm

    An interesting look at the budget over on Red Alert.

    Enter the notion of the “strategic deficit’. Several highly experienced and qualified commentators have underlined to me in recent days that the senior ministers know exactly what risks they are taking, and why.

    They are said to be deliberately running an unsustainable fiscal track: front end loading tax cuts and waiting for a second term (which they must not get) to privatise, asset strip and expenditure-cut their way out.

    The underlying agenda: shrink the size of the state and lock in a lower tax and lower public investment fiscal environment, while rewarding traditional constituencies: the full flowering of their multi-year plan.
13. Draco T Bastard 13

    27 May 2010 at 5:48 pm

    And another @ Red Alert.

    26 May 2010 John Key replies to an Oral Parliamentary question saying he doesn’t have a clue where his assets are held. TV3 breaks story of Whitechapel Ltd and how Key can identify his holdings.

    27 May 2010 Breach of privilege complaint lodged with the Speaker
    • Jim Nald 13.1

      27 May 2010 at 8:25 pm

      When will he tell the truth
14. NZ Bloggers Union 14

    27 May 2010 at 8:12 pm

    http://airnewzealandbestblogaward.blogspot.com/

    Your Union says to enter the damn competition.
    • lprent 14.1

      27 May 2010 at 8:17 pm

      We’re planning to. Got a wee list here somewhere….
      • just saying 14.1.1

        27 May 2010 at 9:28 pm

        Will you all enter individually?

        Pity there isn’t a blog-group award.

        Good luck all of you
        • lprent 14.1.1.1

          27 May 2010 at 9:39 pm

          I’m not much for awards. In fact there was a post that had a pretty good go at Air New Zealand that rated pretty high amongst the unique visitors list…. It is a bit of a pity that the “Loose Lips” Hooten post was this year.

          On the other hand, they’re right about the Qantas awards, I’ve never even heard of those blogs
      • NZ Bloggers Union 14.1.2

        27 May 2010 at 9:43 pm

        It would be nice if you advertised it as well..tutt tutt.

        As for a Group award “just saying” – next year, as well as other categories. We had a time constraint this year to match the Qantas (non)awards.

        I suggest also that the award is passed around for different blogs to organise each year as long as the basic premise and guidelines are met that the Judges have to represent a cross-section of our members. We’ve done it this year, so next year some other bloke or blokesses turn.

        Left and right blogs as well as plenty non-political have all played nicely and entered already and we want to get it up to 50 entries which requires people get off backsides to enter by next Tuesday.
        • lprent 14.1.2.1

          27 May 2010 at 10:07 pm

          I have a page that I’m working on to let the lusers vote on what posts they like. If I get it running by the weekend (the wordpress loop is interesting), then we’ll let them have a crack at it. Otherwise we’ll send through the list that we’ve already compiled.

          Make a guest post and send it to the address in the Contribute page
15. burt 15

    27 May 2010 at 8:57 pm

    Goff

    What is going on? How can he have any credibility attacking tax reductions and asset sales? The party needs a few fresh faces and to rebuild and make a genuine come back for 2014.This snivelling dross about all the things Goff has supported in Govt suddenly being wrong when in opposition is painful and pitiful to watch.

    Slap David Shearer up front! Be bold. Who agrees?
    • mickysavage 15.1

      27 May 2010 at 9:07 pm

      Oh Burt

      Goff is honest enough to say that you have to decide on policies according to the conditions at the time.

      Key did not. He promised not to raise GST and then did when circumstances as he saw them (giving tax cuts to the wealthy) demanded it.

      Goff did not. He opposed the increase. He has said that reducing GST will depend on the circumstances at the time. This is very honest and appropriate but is being used to attack him.

      Goff will do fine. Labour will continue to support him to the next election and after the last few months I would not hold your breath about who will win …
    • burt 15.2

      27 May 2010 at 9:20 pm

      mickysavage

      Aren’t you the guy that said Labour would piss in for 2008?
    • burt 15.3

      28 May 2010 at 9:19 am

      TAMIHERE: How do you say on one side of it, oh no, this is damn good and all that sort of stuff and then on the other side of it say, wow shucks, today I thought about it and what you’re doing John is wrong but when I did it, it was right?

      PHIL GOFF: Well, it was right when we did it

      That is so typical of Labour !
16. Doug 16

    28 May 2010 at 7:27 pm

    Labour need to improve or they will be in third place behind the Greens

    Newmont Waihi Gold
    A mining company says the Labour Party “got it wrong” when it said the company was against mining on Schedule 4 land.

    “The Labour Party has really got it wrong. This submission is more in alignment with the government than perhaps any other.”

    He says the company is not opposed to mining on Schedule 4.

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