Soper’s daily whinge and smear against the government.
He really is a nasty piece of work.
This time he has a go at Golriz Ghahraman.
What a slimeball.
Remember how John Key’s new government in 2008, came in on a raft of two track dirty politics and soft media infotainment spin? And then they were like the deer in the headlines, without much of a plan, so…..
The most expensive proposal from the summit was for an equity investment fund involving the Government and private banks as partners.
…
The most expensive single pledge given yesterday came from Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall, who said the Tindall Foundation would put $1 million towards “bottom-up” training that helped improve people’s access to information and services.
…
At the summit, Mr Key said the public-private investment fund would be “a pot of investment money to help New Zealand companies get the access to share capital they need to grow their cake and therefore to create jobs”.
…
Mr Key said completing the walking track would cost about $6 million.
Adding a cycle track would create huge tourism opportunities.
He singled out for mention a possible public-private fund to help increase tourism.
He also said he wanted to fast-track implementation of National’s youth guarantee scheme which covers the transition from school to training or study.
But she admits that her profile page on the Green Party website, which states that she has put African leaders on trial for abusing their power, “could be clearer”.
Theres a slight difference between prosecuting war criminals and defending war criminals
[lprent: You are simply lying at several levels. But I think this is easier to demonstrate rather than explain at any level..
1. There is no significiant difference between defending and prosecuting. Both are part of a court process that leads to judgement.
2. Her bio actually said – read it carefully
Her studies at Oxford, and work as a lawyer for the United Nations and in New Zealand, have focused on enforcing human rights and holding governments to account. Golriz has lived and worked in Africa, The Hague and Cambodia putting on trial world leaders for abusing their power, and restoring communities after war and human rights atrocities, particularly empowering women engaged in peace and justice initiatives.
3. Putting people on trial is not a prosecution prerogative. It applies to both defense and and prosecution.
4. I think you are trolling and as a local prosecutor and judge, we clearly don’t need a defense. Therefore there should be no trial to look at the actual circumstances.
5. Banned for 1 month for crimes against robust debate..
6. This is not arbitrary in anyway. It is a simple matter of arbitrary lynch mob justice without due process.
And since Golriz Ghahraman has experience of both, she knows an infinite amount more about the difference than you do, but then so does the stenographer.
Yup, from sewer to MSM as the National party smear machine cranks up and all the MSM journos gather around the outflow pipe mouths agape. After all, Farrar negates the need to think, or to resrach, and he helpfully even writes your questions for you.
Soper in particular seems to have decided to wage a misogynistic war on anyone who dares to commit the crime of being young, female and more powerful than him. Linda Clark got it 100% right when she pretty much name checked him and his attitude and told he needed to wake up or ship out.
It’s obvious what the Nats and their MSM enablers are trying to do. The accusations are going to come thick and fast through to the end of this parliamentary session (ie. just before Xmas) leaving a trail of perplexed voters to gather around the barbecues wondering whether they made the right choice voting for Labour/Green or NZ First – whichever. It doesn’t matter the claims are nothing more than garbled rubbish. Its the first part of a slow, subliminal manipulation of their minds.
I noted the sharp edge of cold fury in Barry Soper’s voice at the first stand-up media interviews which followed Winston Peters’ announcement. I knew then he was going to take a vicious approach and he has clearly influenced the little wife, Heather DPA.
That’s kinda the thing about human rights; even the worst of the bad guys have some. It’s part of the complexity of being a human rights lawyer that sometimes you’re defending them.
Ban me if you want, I believe what she did was wrong.
[RL: I don’t care what you believe here, I do care that you dropped a controversial comment with no supporting argument or citation. That ‘smells’ very much like typical hit and run troll behaviour. I moderate on behaviour not content; make your case honestly and I’m unlikely to intervene.]
You realise that without defence lawyers we can’t put people on trial at all? If you want genocide and other human rights abuses to be prosecuted, you have to have court staff.
Take your notion to its logical conclusion and you’re effectively saying that the International Court of Justice enables war crimes, and that our court system enables murder.
There is a role for defense lawyers in the legal system and we need a legal system. That doesnt mean I have to like or endorse those who choose to defend heinous crim inals.
No. That isn’t what you said. Your endearments and endorsements have no value, so with-holding them is of no consequence. However, you made a very specific allegation against people who work on legal defence teams – that their job enables crime.
Are you now backing down from that into a vague sense of disapproval? If so, how about you take some personal responsibility for your disgusting false accusation?
That’s not actually the role of a defense lawyer, any more than the role of a prosecutor is “to get an innocent person convicted”.
Often the morally bankrupt or hard of thinking reduce the functions to simply “get a guilty criminal acquitted” or “innocent person convicted”, but the role of the court is to try to determine the truth. The prosecution present their case, the defense present the case as it appeared to the defendant, and the court decides. Neither party in an adversarial system is allowed to mislead the court, AFAIK. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Why is it unreasonable to point out that Golriz Ghahraman acted for the defence in the genocide trials. When you read her bio on the Green website it gave the impression she was prosecuting genocide, not just in Cambodia but also in Rawanda.
Now I have no problem with her acting for the defence, but she should not have given the wrong impression.
It is not unfair for a journalist to point that out. It is not the act of a slimeball to do so, nether is it sexist.
This site is always saying how terrible National MP’s on the basis they are all psychopaths and liars. But you can’t stand even the slightest adverse comment about those from the left.
What about accusing her of enabling genocide? Which is what “the left” is actually defending her against.
Can you help me understand right wing thinks on this issue please? When you collaborated with Nicky Hager, were you enabling war crimes or Al Quaeda?
What about the Law Commission? You definitely must’ve enabled some pretty serious crimes there, and I don’t just mean the things the National Party wanted 😉
Yes, if we use that ruler to measure Golriz every lawyer that ever defends a criminal is somehow implicated in the crime.
It’s crucial that the crime and the analytical dissection of it after the event are mutually exclusive.
If Golriz’s bio implies she rode around the world on a big white stallion solving the war crime woes of the world, if we all agree everyone is entitled to a quality defence, she did. I lie in mine, I was useless at Rugby.
My comment was in response to Ed’s initial comment, but there have been so many other comments added, it is distanced from that – probably also the result of using an iPhone.
David Farrar on Kiwiblog put the issue in quire a reasonable way, but some of the commenters on his site, not so much. But then some commenters on any of the main political sites use extravagant language accusing people of all sorts of things, and acting from the basest of reasons. The Standard is certainly not immune from that.
DPF put it in as appalling a way as Phil Quin did – as a propaganda call to all those on the right who’d like to skip the human rights stuff and get on with the punishments.
Some one on radio recently was saying how much was paid by observers to watch when they had really brutal punishments. I don’t think that human nature has left those of today unconcerned about the niceties of justice and rule of law, more enlightened than in the past.
There are some amazing things in this piece: If a crowd was denied the spectacle of an execution on the allotted day, occasionally there was some gruesome compensation. In England in 1221, Thomas of Eldersfield was reprieved from hanging at the last moment; in a show of mercy, he was blinded and castrated instead. Robert Bartlett describes the scene: ‘the eyes were thrown to the ground, the testicles used as footballs, the local lads kicking them playfully at the girls’. http://www.historytoday.com/sean-mcglynn/violence-and-law-medieval-england
David Farrar on Kiwiblog put the issue in quire a reasonable way
Farrar? You say “reasonable” because it suits you. “Tendentious” and “disingenuous” are words that come to my mind. You know perfectly well that the Penguin never lets his hands get dirty in public and encourages his troll farm to do the dirty work for him.
but some of the commenters on his site, not so much
What a pity that because we lack your smarmy manners we’ll never be admitted to your gentleman’s club of “reasonable” men. Oh dear.
But in fact at the Rwandan Tribunal she was representing the war criminals in the genocide of around eight hundred thousand Tutsis. She complained about how poorly resourced the defence was. It was as though the United Nations didn’t really believe in the process, she opined.
Ah, I see. He’s the type of person who thinks that people once accused of a crime shouldn’t have any defence and would probably do away with the trial altogether. And, once the trial is over and they’re found guilty, say that the lawyers who made up the defence team are just as bad as the ones found guilty.
Ed (1) … proof Natz (through Joyce) still pulling the strings of msm, with NZH dredging up whatever is possible to smear the coalition government, regardless of how truthful or inconsequential it is!
Golriz was doing her job, as most lawyers are expected to do. Look at Key’s former job as a currency trader. Bet some of the activity there wasn’t above board! Was that ever challenged by msm? No!
Congratulations to Prince Harry and Megan Markle for there engagement there wedding is good for OUR worlds society.
I only advocate Vapours as a tool to give up smoking as I’m using Vapours to give up. The only thing we should be breathing into our lungs is clean air we need to set a age limit R 18 and a display/advertising restrictions to limit the appeal and take up of vaping by our youth. PS your a bit out numbered Hillary you need a lady friend on the breakfast show Ka Pai
But The Treaty adam is between Maori and the Monarchy – not the NZ Govt. This is an issue that if NZ were to progress towards complete independence from England would need to be resolved.
I agree with your comment Adam, but I also have to say, it’s awesome when two people fall in love and get married for the right reasons, his mum would have be thrilled.
But she is no leader of ours. She has done absolutely nothing as our Head of State. She was very polite in how she told Maori to piss off when ask to have some honour and look at the treaty her institution signed.
I now see that the national opposition is attempting to stall the new government’s plan to stop labour/NZF/Greens coalition “17 goals” and run then out of time, by jaming Labour with over 6200 “spam” questions.
So Jacinda needs to show Government “leadership” and need to rush through an urgency bill to reverse the national party changes they (national) placed to allow this attempt to close down the new government, and restore the former system preventing this “tea party style” abuse of our parliamentary system..
“The Government is going all out to tick off all 17 goals on its 100-day plan.
A hundred days. Just over three months. It sounds like plenty of time until you blink and realise a month has passed since the Government was sworn in. They have until February 3.”
I think you are right cleangreen. It is time Ardern showed some steel and dealt with these National ratbags. There is nothing nice about the Natz, they are at war and need to be exposed for their spiteful anti democratic behaviour. New Zealanders deserve better.
Labour coalition only have – 6th 7th 8th, – 12th, 13th, 14th December; – and the xmas party celebrations need to be be put in there somewhere we assume too.
hey have their budget to release and befre 3rd February need to make good on the ’17 goals’ as the ‘100 day pledge’ to NZ.
Labour have just six more days in parliament these emails this year, so we are screwed unless Jacinda can change the legislation today.
Or else Labour are left bound up with these 6200 ‘spam’ emails now and labour now has no choice but to pass a ’emergency bill’ to stop “email spaming” forthwith.
it is preventing government to function under legislation national passed. Remove all National legislation labour must in all areas also.
I knew national would leave ‘hand grenades’ to stymie this new government so they need to remove all national toxic legislation now.
That sitting calendar for 2017 is the one originally in place prior to the election and is now out of date.
Following the swearing in of the new government a revised sitting programme for the remainder of 2017 was drawn up in conjunction with the proposed sitting calendar for 2018.
So Parliament will sit for the next four weeks from today, Tues 28 Nov through until 6pm Thurs, 21 December – not just the two weeks originally planned (6th 7th 8th, – 12th, 13th, 14th December).
Is is highly likely that Parliament will also go into urgency in order to get the PPL legislative amendments through and possibly other legislative business prior to the Christmas/New Year close down – including possibly reversing some Nats legislation.
Thanks for giving us the updated sitting schedules veutoviper,
I went on the usual site but being that the new government had “a minefield” of changes that were needed to be made with the whole moviing of the old tired national mob out into the ‘lower government’ buildings and the new labour coalition Government newly placed on the ninth floor of the ‘Beehive building’.
We know only to well how difficult that two weeks it took to get the new Government communications up and running.
I understood all this as I was employed by the ‘fourth largest communication company globally’ (Bell) and used to place new systems in Government buildings also.
As our many NGO emails went un-anwered for weeks until we got hold of a Government secretary and were told that a “new communication system was in the process of being installed” and they had problems, so I guess this is catch up time for all.
The Parliament website has actually been very quickly updated this round after the election. The new MPs were listed etc within a day of the election etc. and other needed amendments up very quickly.
However, I did find it took a few minutes to relocate the link on the Parliament website to the revised sitting schedule for 2017. I knew that it had been changed but it was not immediately visible because it was included in the article re the proposed 2018 sitting programme.
Having worked in government for many years in Wellington (including very closely working with and in the Parliament precinct), I am pretty sure the actual Parliament website (and related staff etc) would have been unaffected by the physical moves, changes to communications etc related to the change of government, relocation of MPs and parties. Fun days, but actually very much highly planned and managed chaos!
All good now we need to ‘stand in line with national waiting for the reples from the 42 emails we have sent the new government’.
Now our NGO representing many communities wonder if the national email nonsene has now prevented the Labour coalition government from responding to other questions for the community also now?
So that puts the public interest now behind national party’s own interests, and that means national wont care about their own impact upon our communities interests?
Maybe national should have thought clearly how their ‘obstruction’ process over 6200 emails of questions was going to impact on all NZ communities.
An interesting take by the ever-pedantic Graeme Edgeler, but i also suggest people read the comments which put things into a bit more perspective in terms of National’s actions while in government. In particular, it is worth reading Katherine Moody’s comment here
This includes a number of replies by Key and his ministers to very similar diary related questions while in government. The wording of these replies is not only similar to one another of these Nat Ministers, but also to that now being used by the new Labour/NZF/Green government Ministers.
Examples:
Hon Bill English (Minister of Finance) replied: As Minister of Finance I have a large number of meetings in Wellington and around New Zealand. I do not believe it is a good use of staff time to itemise my meetings or engagements, nor attempt to list the names of every person I met over the course of a month. If the member is interested in a specific issue or organisations then I might be able to provide more detailed information.
Hon Steven Joyce (Minister for Economic Development) replied: I hold a large number of meetings both formally and informally each month with a wide range of people and discuss a wide range of topics. I do not consider it reasonable use of official’s time to provide the Member with a comprehensive list of all such meetings, nor is it feasible as the information requested is often not specifically captured by my records. If the Member could be more specific about a particular area of interest I would be happy to consider his request.
English just on on Morning Report claiming National had raised the bar for transparency in government over the past 9 years and that Labour needed to up their game as they were stuck in time a decade ago. LOL. This from the party that totally subverted the OIA request process over the past 9 years.
Hypocrite.
He was also asked if Smith was right in claiming National won the election. He wouldn’t say yes or no but his reply was something like “well we got the most votes
and that’s really unusual”.
Yes Grey it was rough waking up to English in full Billshit mode.
National admitted at one stage during the last 9 years that it did its best to stymie OIA requests and it is legendary how under-resourced the Ombudsman became under the Nats with massive delays.
Ian Lees-Galloway was excellent on Morning Report this morning talking about Paid Parental Leave and how Labour has cooperated with the Nats on this despite Amy Adams negativity-worth a listen.
Here is a link to the excellent Ian L-G interview (via the related RNZ news article with a lovely picture of Ian holding Willow Jean Prime’s baby as an added bonus).
And for anyone wanting to hear/see the Bill English Morning Report interview, here are the links.
(The first one is a lead-in to the actual interview with English. The actual interview was pretty soft with no real challenges from Espiner and the interview ended on a weak excuse by Espiner that the reception was not good as English was on his cellphone).
Talking about hypocracy we met S Joyce twice in three years and the fisrt meeting he was ‘slightly prepared to assist our comittee about saving our Gisborne/Napier rail.
But in the second meeting he was aggressively ‘aloof’ as he proudly publiclly announced that ‘his study’ he produced (since debunked by BERL) was proof the rail must close.
Joyce said the rail is ‘not worth re-openning’.
Later it was our Labour MP Phil Twyford as acting transport spokesperson that placed his ‘expose’ on the web how S Joyce as Minister of Transport allowed kiwirail to remove the $200 Million from kiwirails maintainence fund and at the select committee he was at kiwirail admitted is was that which closed the napier gisborne rail.
So S Joyce is both a true liar and a possible criminal for intentionally causing the destruction of part of the publically owned rail services and harmed the SOE.
“By any international standard the last government was open and transparent, and this government, as with many other things, has expressed these high-minded intentions and then fails to follow through.”
Mr English said the previous National-led government lifted the bar a long way on transparency.
“We stressed the early release of cabinet papers, the full release of budget documents, including draft reports which had not really been done before.
“The extensive release of data because that’s such an important part of being able to monitor what a government is doing and how it is doing it.”
PS….thinking that a ‘leftish’ government would be uncomfortable with such a heavily redacted justification for legislation that removed the rights of New Zealanders I did email the Head Office and requested that the blanked out bits of this document be revealed.
Heard nothing yet. I guess they’re busy trying to spin not releasing documents their coalition partner said would be released.
So the last Government (National) recieved 105 emails from our NGO over five years as I am secretary of it, and only two of the 63 National ministers only answered (on one small section of only of a small”side issue”.)
Question
1/ Is this because we are not officially a government agency but an NGO Puckish Rougue?
And more to the point (PR) question two; –
2/ Are we to expect the same from this new Labour lead government too (PR) Puckish Rouge; – or are you just another “PR” for the last corrupt government ?
Rail is the enemy to a former national Government with a man running it (s joyce) who is rightly called “the tarseal king” who we believe he has interests in trucking we have been informed.
The show must go on I don’t see these people logic in following me around everywhere I go Im sure there are other people that deserve there attention. My neo liberal neighbour must have run out of fireworks you see there are a lot of these people in this little suburb they use fireworks to try and intimidat me. My dates were wrong it’s been 13 years of harassment from the Gisborne man and about 3 1/2 years that he landed his glider on the farm. The Rock one time I got challened to drink a jar of rum can’t remember what happened but a m8 told me I was getting a long with the best crayfishmans daughter lol the next time this guy 2 weeks before try to fight me I put him in his place he made out he was over it and his m8 challenged me to drink a jar of rum woke up the next morning broke ribbs squash nose this guy waited till I fell asleep and attacked me that was a good lesson I don’t get pissed and always have a gard up. Kia kaha
All 84,000 civil servants will receive a year-end Annual Variable Component (AVC) of one month’s pay – higher than the 0.5 month they received in 2016, according to their Public Service Division.
That would motivate those lovelies in MBIE and Treasury and DPMC to pull their finger out and make some serious moves.
I am all for the Singapore model; top tax rate of 22%, no CGT, corporate tax rate of 17% etc
Yeah, and then they take you to the cleaners through indirect taxation.
As mentioned, Singaporeans have been told that we pay low income taxes, but when you compare income taxes with indirect taxes, you would see that Singaporeans pay 3.5 times as much into indirect taxes than direct taxes, whereas Swedes and Finns pay about the same indirect taxes as direct taxes, and the Danes pay only about a lesser 70% of direct taxes into indirect taxes
That’s kinda the thing about human rights; even the worst of the bad guys have some. It’s part of the complexity of being a human rights lawyer that sometimes you’re defending them.
Thanks. I get human rights are universal and our system provides support for all sides and I struggle with it. I struggle that mass murderers get more rights than the many they murdered. I struggle that a sicko can do sicko things throughout their life and at the 11th hour have a big realisation and seek forgiveness. I struggle with these moral dilemmas.
Working the defence is something I couldn’t do. My personal revulsion at someone’s deeds would really interfere with fulfilling my obligations to that person’s defence.
Personally I’m of the opinion that someone that deliberately interferes with someone else’s human rights should forfeit their own. However, even in that mindset, there’s still the issue of determining what culpable deeds have actually been done. But as a general view, it’s at odds with the whole philosophical structure around justice that we’ve built up over time. And I’m really not interested in trying to think through the wrinkles of trying to replace that structure, especially since there’s no chance significant change will happen. At best there will be tinkering around the edges.
Personally I’m of the opinion that someone that deliberately interferes with someone else’s human rights should forfeit their own.
as I think you clearly understand, the whole point of a trial is to determine culpability as an outcome, not as an apriori assumption. Or to put it in the more familiar parlance “innocent until proven guilty”.
That’s not just a human right, it’s a very real protection we afford defendants due to the enormous disparity of resources between the state and the individual. From this came another famous legal dictum ‘that it’s better ten guilty people go free than one innocent person be convicted”. In other words it is a concious feature of our legal system to weight the odds in favour of the defendants. Even culpable ones.
Part of the problem here is the internet has let us all indulge our fantasies of playing at judge, jury and executioner to the extent that these old and important ideas have become diminished, sometimes dismissed altogether.
Those are all points that need to be repeatedly hammered, particularly with the likes of Quin that don’t get it.
But I think your point below at 8.2 expresses a key idea most concisely: if the accused doesn’t have a capable defense team, then the whole process lacks legitimacy. In that context, the defense is just as important as the prosecution for delivering justice. For the victims as well as broader society.
Ghahraman said she has never met Quin, but that his comments showed “an embarrassing lapse in understanding”.
“No one is saying there is no such thing as genocide. It’s like saying a defence lawyer [defending someone charged with murder] in our justice system here is a murder-denier.
The whole point is that in order for a trial to have any legitimacy it’s essential for the defendants to have access to a legal defense. Someone has to do this. Quin’s failure to understand is not just embarrassing, it’s kind of chilling.
Very odd. His point seems to be that defence lawyers somehow endorse their client’s alleged crimes and that to be a defence lawyer you mustn’t have strong morals.
Quin seems a vindictive type and I suspect he’s jealous of other’s achievements.
I read the opposite. That he didn’t have much problem with the green website (I did read that somewhere but can’t find it), but that she chose to work on the defence team saying, “of all the ways to save the world, she chose to send killers back to the villages where their victims’ families are trying to rebuild their lives.”
Most likely Quin has just picked up the ‘doofus of the week’ award off Nick Smith, but it’s an especially bizarre charge to lay against her, given what I personally understand of Gharaman’s family story,
What about mob lawyers – are they just giving their clients a fair go. Lawyers are just like other people – fallable, greedy, stupid and selfish – and with all the qreat qualities too, like compassion.
I get the system and I find it challenging as well.
All those things may well be true in general marty, but in this instance it’s was a young barrister doing tough work, (pro bono IIRC) in a tough environment for all the right reasons.
Indeed that’s the main focus of the interview; the vast gulf between the realities on the ground in Rwanda and NZ.
There are lots of jobs I couldn’t and wouldn’t do and I have some admiration and at least respect for those that can, even with the personal cost that this must entail for them. This is one of those cases.
I think moral questions are often the most intellectually interesting.
I think yes and also no if they ignored evidence in their defence/legal/work with the company to ensure the company could continue to make profit. Hard to prove though ☺
But isn’t that the task of lawyers working for a company to protect the “rights” of the company to sell it’s wares? And you are aware that National’s Chris Bishop worked for Phillip Morris?
And the task of a defence lawyer is to protect the rights of their client – no matter how heinous their crime may have been.
Should a rapist be given a fair trial or a paedophile? Of course they must -otherwise our society descends into lawlessness, such as was the case in Rwanda. If the accused were to receive no defence, then the subsequent conviction would have no more merit than the summary justice they metered out to those they slaughtered.
Unfortunately Marty – as G.E. Moore (a late British Philosopher) explained “goodness” is like “redness” – it is a simple concept that cannot be broken down into constituent parts. Either you perceive redness or you don’t.
I can only say that by their actions you shall know them. Does Gloriz act in a good way or a bad way? Having met her and seen the work she has done (not only acting as a defence lawyer) she is a good person – as are all the Green MPs.
I hope that is of some help.
I agree with your comments about legal process Redlogix.
But Im not sure though if thats the issue here. Isn’t it that Ghahraman and the Greens deliberately fudged her role in the Riwanda war crimes legal process so that the punters would assume that she was on the side of the angels; not the devils, so to speak.
She was perfectly open about what her role was in Rwanda before the Election – because she was a Green candidate – such news was decided not to be published by the MSM – because of “lack of space”. Well I guess it’s much more important to tell us about Bill’s smile
I have no problems with her being on the defense team though why you’d volunteer is beyond me but her profile page on the Green website was, at best, misleading:
“Golriz has lived and worked in Africa, The Hague and Cambodia, putting on trial world leaders for abusing their power.”
Says nothing about defending world leaders either and she herself says “could be clearer”
How those panama papers working out Puckish Rouge? Or the polls buddy? How many more lies do we have to suffer though? Oh wait – you could just revert to type as a racist we all know you are…
Still spinning and lying I see – Oh well can’t be helped, I suppose. It’s what you do.
“Golriz has lived and worked in Africa, The Hague and Cambodia, putting on trial world leaders for abusing their power.”
Says nothing about defending world leaders either and she herself says “could be clearer”
Completely irrelevant. How long is the bio? A few paragraphs?
When I do my three page CV I barely touch the surface of anything on my work history. You’re looking at what I did ina company for 2-4 or even 11 years in a single paragraph. It was like that from when I was 26. By that time I’d had a 10 year work history and several degrees. It had skim paragraphs about time in the army, working as a farm hand, as a barman, a factory machine operator, technical salesman, factory manager, and computer support.
If you want to be be a idiot, then go ahead. Just don’t be surprised if people sum up your CV as “FOOL”
US is seeking the extradition of a British guy (Lauri) for stuff English courts didn’t lay charges over. And apparently …
The US government know that their claims against Lauri will never be tested in court. The way extradition works means that prosecutors do not have to show any evidence to the British authorities. And because those US prosecutors reserve the right to try Lauri three times, in three different districts, with a potential sentence of 99 years, they know he would be under enormous pressure to accept a plea bargain.
Ninety-seven per cent of federal defendants in the United States never get a trial because they are offered a choice of either accepting years in prison if they plead guilty or risking decades to have their day in court. What Lauri is being offered in the United States is not a trial but blackmail with a potential life sentence attached.
GROVEL.
State-sponsored adulation of shepherd-murderer moves into overdrive
Tuesday 28 November 2017
RNZ National, 7:24 a.m. GUYON ESPINER: …. [drily amused] I’ve been taken to task for asking what Harry’s going to wear. SUSIE FERGUSON: It’ll be a uniform, of course! GUYON ESPINER: Of course it will. ….. [grovel, grovel…]
three, a.m. show, 7:25 a.m. DUNCAN GARNER: Royal correspondent Dicky Arbiter, good morning! DICKY ARBITER:[beaming] The Twitter universe has come alight! …[widens his eyes to indicate his great joy]… Like any young couple in love, they’re not hiding their love for each other! AMANDA GILLIES: She wore a BEAUTIFUL new coat, designed by Line the Label. What does this mean for dress designers in the U.K.?….[grovel]…. DICKY ARBITER: They’ll look on her as they did Harry’s mother—as a clothes horse rather than a work horse. They do a tremendous amount of good work; let’s focus on what they DO rather than on what they wear, for a change. DUNCAN GARNER: Yeah, I’m WITH you on this! DICKY ARBITER:[worshipfully] Harry was a soldier. He was at the sharp end in Afghanistan. …. The couple meeting and they see each other across a crowded room, and that’s IT!… They just clicked, just like a jigsaw puzzle. … Younger people see them as role models. ….
7:52 a.m. DUNCAN GARNER: Are you interested in the royal engagement? Some of you are. Some of you aren’t at all! That’s next!
…Advertisements (paid ones, not free ones for the Royal Family)….
7:54 a.m. DUNCAN GARNER: Okay, welcome back. So much feedback for the royal wedding!
MARK RICHARDSON: Prince Harry was happy before this American came along. Well maybe not happy, but he was having a good time.
AMANDA: He wasn’t happy, he’s said that.
DUNCAN GARNER: Our poll question this morning is: “Do you care about the royal engagement between Prince Harry and Mehan Markle?” Well, not everybody does, it seems. Stuey says: “There are lots of unsung heroes in the community. He’s a privileged pillock and welfare beneficiary.”
The others in the studio—Gillies, Richardson, and social presenter Shannon Redstall—titter with pity and amusement.
DUNCAN GARNER: The woooorld of Stuey! I tell you what, Stuey, you can be the producer for the next sixty-threee minutes, and you can decide what’s going to be on the television.
8:02 a.m. DUNCAN GARNER: Coming up on our panel is Rawdon Christie, broadcaster and royalist. We’ll be talking about Prince Harry, because Stuey hasn’t had enough of that yet…
8:35 a.m. DUNCAN GARNER: All right, some things we don’t know about Meghan Markle. Everybody’s talking about this right now! …She has two adopted dogs, Bogart and, and…. AMANDA GILLIES: Guy. DUNCAN GARNER: Yes! You know that? …. Mark, you seem sad. MARK RICHARDSON: He was my guy. He was my royal guy!
8:42 a.m. DUNCAN GARNER: We can’t get away from royal news today! It appears the royal couple may be related….
Thanks, cleangreen, for those very kind words. I do it all by ear, usually. This morning I scribbled it down freehand up to 8 o’clock, and the rest I did on my computer as I listened.
My transcriptions are not always spot on, though, and have elicited some controversy here….
Prince Harry has been photographed groping and kissing girls in a London nightclub. Britain’s The Sun newspaper printed pictures – taken earlier this summer – of Harry and his brother Prince William, partying at London’s Boujis nightclub. … He had his hands all over her and was kissing her on the face. At one point he reached his arm around her and gave her a proper grope on her breast. …. http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/royal_family/Britains+Prince+Harry-22051.html
Groping and snorting in Las Vegas…
The giggling prince’s demeanour here is a world away from his attitude following the firestorm of controversy that engulfed him after his fun and games in his hotel room. He and his friends took over a £1,000-a-day VIP bungalow at the MGM Grand Hotel for one of its infamous Wet Republic pool parties.
These raucous alcohol-fuelled events are popular in Vegas and involve several thousand young people attempting to get as drunk as humanly possible while pulling members of the opposite sex in the fierce sunshine.
By the end of the day, say those with intimate knowledge of such events, the pools contain more urine than water and couples are openly having sex.
“GROPERS” is presented by GroperWatch, a division of Daisycutter Sports Inc.
No.1 George Herbert Walker Bush; No. 2 Bill O’Reilly; No. 3 Al Franken; No. 4 Robin Brooke; No. 5 Lester Beck; No. 6 Arnold Schwarzenegger; No. 7 Joe Biden; No. 8 Rolf Harris; No. 9 Harold Bloom; No. 10 Sir Jimmy Savile; No. 11 Dr Morgan Fahey
You have great memory recall; – I guess nmy chemical poisoning back in 1992 while last working in Canada hurt my brain as I now have poor memory recall.
Especially if I now get exposed to some perfume’s, diesel exhaust, synthetic rubber smells, and many others.
That is why I love things to be ‘cleangreen’.
So I need to use a tape recording and a “very patient wife of 45 yrs” to transcribe the event. (she is my one love, – once married; – us both)
If you’re going to run this series, you really ought to read up a little about “consent” – what it means and how it might be relevant to these posts. Because otherwise you could just end up looking like a grumpy old man who needs to get laid.
I find his scribbing of public affairs issues quite refreshing.
Especially since the ‘media’ fail to cover ‘in depth’ public affairs issues today Morrissey is trying to expose them in a transcibed way and if the persons involved dont like their words repeated were are we left then????
His sources include “The Sun” and “The Daily Mail”.
Geat “credible” sources of info.
Interesting how the Left like to lambast the media; until a story is published that suits their way of thinking
Different Morrissey comment, Cleangreen. This is the one about gropers, not the radio transcript.
My issue with it is it makes no case for the sexual activity being non-consensual and yet lumps it in with the activities of people like Rolf Harris and Jimmy Saville. What makes a “groper” is lack of consent, not the fact of touching someone.
Fair comment, Milt, assuming Prince Harry respected the women he groped. I find that highly unlikely. The women seemed to be initially upset but were eventually flustered into smiling and accepting the mistreatment. Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein indulged in similar behaviour, and their victims were socialized into grinning and bearing it, or simply keeping quiet.
Sure, give that coke-snorting lout the benefit of the doubt if you want. You think someone who kills shepherds from the sanctuary of a helicopter gunship, then soaks up the adulation of the Murdoch press which dubbed him “The Big H”, gropes only willing women at those orgies.
Addled dotard shows his condescending racist slip.
President Trump: "We have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her 'Pocahontas.'" pic.twitter.com/9zML2RVFtP— CSPAN (@cspan) November 27, 2017
President Trump: "We have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her 'Pocahontas.'" pic.twitter.com/9zML2RVFtP
WASHINGTON—For a year and a half, President Donald Trump has been denounced by Native American leaders for calling Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas.”
He just did it again — at an event honouring Native American war heroes.
Trump held a White House ceremony on Monday to celebrate Navajo “code talkers,” who used their language to transmit secret messages during the Second World War. After complimenting the code talkers, Trump said, “You were here long before any of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”
[…]
The jab at Warren was not the only part of the Monday event that was called offensive. Trump decided to make the speech in front of a portrait of president Andrew Jackson, who is notorious among Native Americans for signing the 1830 Indian Removal Act that forced Natives off of their land and produced thousands of deaths.
Trump also referred to his chief of staff John Kelly as “the chief.” And he suggested he was not personally familiar with the history of the code talkers.
“And I have to say, I said to General Kelly, I said, general, how good — here he is, right there, the chief; he’s the general and the chief — I said, how good were these code talkers?” he said.
Kelly’s response, according to Trump: “Sir, you have no idea. You have no idea how great they were.”
Glyphosate. Another 5 years for it as part of Roundup by the EU on the basis of it possibly being carcinogenic but one can’t be sure till enough people die.
It came up after WW2, where chemicals were used regularly to deadly effect.
Glyphosate was first synthesized in 1950 by Swiss chemist Henry Martin, who worked for the Swiss company Cilag. The work was never published.[18]:1 Stauffer Chemical patented the agent as a chemical chelator in 1964 as it binds and removes minerals such as calcium, magnesium, manganese, copper, and zinc.[19]
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) maintained their current classification of glyphosate as a substance causing serious eye damage and as a substance toxic to aquatic life, but did not find evidence implicating it to be a carcinogen, a mutagen, toxic to reproduction, nor toxic to specific organs.[17]
Monsanto’s last commercially relevant United States patent expired in 2000….
Farmers quickly adopted glyphosate, especially after Monsanto introduced glyphosate-resistant Roundup Ready crops, enabling farmers to kill weeds without killing their crops. In 2007, glyphosate was the most used herbicide in the United States’ agricultural sector and the second-most used in home and garden (2,4-D being the most used)…
In many cities, glyphosate is sprayed along the sidewalks and streets, as well as crevices in between pavement where weeds often grow. However, up to 24% of glyphosate applied to hard surfaces can be run off by water….
In 2015, 89% of corn, 94% of soybeans, and 89% of cotton produced in the United States were genetically modified to be herbicide-tolerant….
Use of glyphosate to clear milkweed along roads and fields may have contributed to a decline in monarch butterfly populations in the Midwestern United States.[172] Along with deforestation and adverse weather conditions,[173] the decrease in milkweed contributed to an 81% decline in monarchs.[174][175] The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a suit in 2015 against the EPA, in which it is argued that the agency ignored warnings about the dangers of glyphosate usage for monarchs.[176]… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
Seems like they are prepared to throw stuff at bees and as long as they keep flying, then the bad individual or combined effects of these chemicals is downplayed.
Then on Radionz we are suffering from leptospirosis which there have been another 93 in NZ for half the year. On and on and our environment and health constantly compromised.
The NZ Initiative a RW thinktank. And lying in heaps.
(Looking at the link that beatie gives above.) They present themselves as cool and rational and informed. They cherry pick the information they disseminate. They quote macro information, quote averages, and then present us with little direct information about individual groups.
With double the income-per-person than what was in 1970, a minimum wage up 50 per cent (inflation adjusted) and better medical care boosting life expectancy and reducing child mortality, you’d think New Zealand would be in its heyday.
It sounds good – double the income of 1970 – how was the inflation adjustment done, what was the base line, apples with apples? Housing has gone up horrendously since 1970, rentals are up, accommodation supplement always trails and the system is its own moral hazard. So that wouldn’t be rosy, but it isn’t mentioned. Instead we hear about child mortality, a nationwide measure, and life expectancy which is a population measure that is of vague concern to someone trying to manage on a pension.
Dr Bryce Wilkinson is just another RW fellow traveller packing a good story against beneficiaries whose opinion and solutions are discounted when pitted against a comfortable professional RW bottom, or even an erect spinal column of bias which is the healthy method of IT work now; (standing, perhaps they could let Peter try it out).
[Peter] has experience in technology and IT but isn’t able to sit in an office chair for longer than three minutes without getting excruciating pain.
“They should do a proper work assessment to see what my experience is and what jobs I can do based on my ability. I’m happy to work from home,” Peter said.
“To me they’re just trying to save costs without any care for the long-term solutions for the beneficiary.”
Wilkinson said a beneficiary’s shortage of money was a symptom rather than a cause of poverty. Instead efforts needed to be made to address drug addiction, alcoholism, mental illness, low skills, poor parenting and a lack of understanding of work habits.
Policies that increase job and income growth must be valued to complement welfare. The report stated the welfare system should “nourish rather than smother self-help”.
“State welfare support is a balancing act. A good system must guard against beneficiaries who could work but do not. This is a waste of human potential and an unwarranted burden on their fellow citizens.”
One notices, one does, the little homily at the end from the stern but just and prudent arbiter of these lives of people who are faulty and unable to take advantage of opportunities that are commonly available, for those who have the ability to exert themselves./sarc
The slimy words of callous, self-centred people are for the purpose of impressing their peer group in society, as to whose fault it is that ‘these people’ are languishing out there. However the dossier that TS has built up over the years gives us examples that ensure we understand the problem in the round, the whole vicious circle that ensures that the welfare system doesn’t work, because the RW don’t want a good, working, society of happy people. Such people are harder to squeeze the last juice out of.
Its now settling down now,holiday time ,to respect our coalition government,as others chance to talk about democracy,as three political parties say, this is our march to our lands care.
I reckon the only reason the nats want to see it is because they want to know why and how they missed out, they just aren’t handling losing the election very well at all.
It’s funny (strange) how so many are going through this small item from Golriz sieving it word by word like someone panning for gold.
Yet Key was here for decades and I don’t think anyone went through his past sorting out where his money actually came from. Did anyone actually know how much he made from selling out a day before… from buying a penthouse that was being rezoned …. from not paying his full tax or by selling a day after the withholding period… etc. And it seemed to be his money that was the main attraction, that gave him gravitas. Once he had that it was such a laugh that he was okay, so free to not care about cheeky comments about peeing in the shower and other things like sitting in a cage with a jerk and a microphone.
Is anyone allowed to ask English what the contents of his 200 or so texts to his lady friend were about. I am sure Nz ers want to know. In the interest of transparency and all.
But Floyd those texts (270 odd wasn’t it) were to do with his electorate – sort of like the electronic equivalent of “notes” between him and his local secretary. He didn’t believe they came under the auspices of the OIA. Now, someone else has said that just in the last 24 hrs. Oh that’s right, the Prime Minister. I guess she has taken her cue from the previous Prime Minister.
While we’re talking about Ms Ghahraman, my other problem with her is that she is a refugee who seeks to bring in more refugees. Feels a bit like a Trojan Horse scenario
A.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Like companies who bring in migrants with work experience rather than hire and intern train up local graduates, replacing those who migrate to Oz (for higher wages) with another immigrant.
New Zealand companies just a Trojan horse back door into Oz.
There are around 20 million refugees in the world today.
Every year around 5 million people are forced for one reason or another to flee from their homes and to seek refuge in another country.
NZ accepts 750 refugees per year.
And you make that offensive comment!
🙄
Your “other” problem!? Why fear something that may never happen? It only exists in your mind because you let it exist there and cling on to it. Let it go and be free of your fears.
Well i can’t avoid the whole bloody country. Anyway you need to be more compassionate and less judgmental imo. Bigotry must be addressed in this country. You can actually hurt people you know.
The Standard is a place for heated debate, as you can well see by reading the posts on pretty much any day. I wouldn’t go round talking like this offline.
I never want to see one of our MPs smiling in a photo alongside a man found guilty of inciting genocide (in an International Criminal Tribunal, and sentenced to 15 years).
We can do without her in NZ. I would like to see her resign as an MP.
No, you didn’t change your mind one bit; you were just a bit slow in making up your mind. It’s funny that so many people seem to go on about changing to improve ‘things’ while in fact they are rooting for status quo and the very last thing they’ll want to do on Earth is to change their (own) minds. I say these people have it back to front big time; reality is not in your head, it is everything but and all outside of your head. Don’t think too long about it as it might change your mind in irrevocable ways.
There is a reason that the Greens almost halved their voter support and lost seats this election…fringe party lunacy, shows what a bastard and undemocratic system MMP is (Winston 2017 may be the straw that broke the MMP back…eventually, and finally). Just as ex National MP Shane Ardern..
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Two years have now gone by since the Friday afternoon when my university-student son and I headed out of our Barcelona flat to a nearby primary school, designated as a polling station for the vote that was to be held the following Sunday: the referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain ...
Overruled: The joint decision of Finance Minister, Grant Robertson (Labour) and his Associate Minister, David Parker (Labour) arguably the two most powerful ministers in Jacinda Ardern’s government, to grant OceanaGold the consents which Land Information Minister, Eugenie Sage (Greens) had earlier denied them, offers bitter proof of how hard fighting ...
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...
A Statement on Abortion Law Reform by the Council of Disobedient Women On the eve of bringing an end to antiquated, anti-women abortion laws Green MP Jan Logie intends to write women out of the Bill. With a stroke of the pen, the woke are aiming for total erasure ...
Musings continue apace about “the experienced businessman!” soon to be taking up a National Party MP position. Or to be more accurate, being parachuted into a seat to shut down their former MP Jamie-Lee Ross, who despite his own shortcomings shed at least some more light on the inner workings ...
The Ugandan government wants to murder gay people:Uganda has announced plans to impose the death penalty on homosexuals. The bill, colloquially known as “Kill the Gays” in Uganda, was nullified five years ago on a technicality, but the government said on Thursday it plans to resurrect it within weeks. The ...
Hassan Vally, La Trobe UniversityWho doesn’t want to know if drinking that second or third cup of coffee a day will improve your memory, or if sleeping too much increases your risk of a heart attack? We’re invested in staying healthy and many of us are interested in reading ...
Freedom Of Speech? The Säuberung (cleansing by fire) was the work of the German Student Union which, on 10 May 1933, under the watchful eye of the Nazi Reichminister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, consigned 25,000 books to the flames in a ritual exorcism of “un-German thought”. According to the logic of the ...
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...
New Zealand has prided itself for decades with regard to its lack of pollution, and all will be aware that the ‘100% Pure New Zealand‘ meme is under threat through land, water and air pollution of various causes. There is another type of contamination that the country also faces: light ...
New Zealand’s media is doing its part in Japan, reassuring those in the path of the storm that they won’t miss any rugby while away from their flooded homes. New Zealand sports reporters stationed in Japan for the Rugby World Cup have had the rare and heartwarming opportunity to inform ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is the only Cabinet member in favour of putting it all on green. As Finance Minister Grant Robertson finds himself with an enormous $7.5 billion surplus, the Government has begun intense, at times contentious conversations about whether to put the money on red or black at ...
by Susanne Kemp At the start of September close to 100,000 school teachers went on strike in Jordan. They demanded a 50% pay rise. A pay rise actually agreed to by the regime back in 2014. In early October, however, in the face of government repression and threats, the teachers’ ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhy do people still think climate change isn’t real?David ...
New Zealand First MP Shane Jones has hit back at those who are upset over a change in approach to partnership visas. There has been a specific government directive to stop waiving requirements such as couples needing to have lived together for 12 months - a test Indian couples who have ...
The North Auckland Line rejuvenation kicks off with teams surveying the rail corridor and Northland construction contractors are showing interest in the project.KiwiRail provided an industry briefing for Northland contracting and construction companies about future work opportunities on rejuvenating Northland’s rail lines. The briefing session in Whangarei was held to ...
Journalist Andrew Dickens, reporting from the 2019 New Zealand First Conference, states that the Party once again proved “they are more than a sideshow”. In his op-ed article for NewstalkZB, Mr Dickens said he has always been an admirer of the Party, saying they are “a true centrist party”. “[NZ ...
New Zealand First's potential policy of compulsory community service for ages 15-19 years old has been getting support from those in the industry. A policy remit was passed during their recent Conference in Christchurch, gaining the support of a majority of its membership. Party leader Winston Peters has been talking ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says the Party hopes to decide it’s stance pill testing at music festivals "before the season of concern", with festivals generally held during the summer months. Mr Peters' comments come in an interview with TVNZ's Q+A and follow a remit from the party's youth ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says he has been told to be "alert" to potential cost blowouts for the light rail project in Auckland. Mr Peters said no such concerns were raised with him from ministerial colleagues, including Transport Minister Phil Twyford of the Labour Party. He suggested that ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters Leader of New Zealand First The Benefits of having New Zealand First in the Centre: Security, Experience & Balance 2.00pm, 20th October 2019 Ladies and Gentlemen Thank you all for your warm welcome to this, the party’s 26thConvention. Speaking on behalf of caucus colleagues, it’s great to ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs Fletcher Tabuteau is travelling to the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu this week to continue toadvance important bilateral relationships in our region consistent with thePacific Reset. Mr Tabuteau will engage in a range of bilateral meetings and visit New Zealand development ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...
Speaking at the Council of Trade Unions' (CTU) biennial conference, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told unionists that any future attacks on the Government won't work. "Now, we are being attacked by the union movement in this country. You can have your views but I'm here to say standing ...
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark has used his powers to overrule a noise complaint ruling against Whenuapai airbase on the grounds of "national security". The Environment Court last month released a ruling in favour of a private developer, declaring the Auckland airbase had to comply with noise restrictions when it performs ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has opened fire against "unreconstructed morons" after NZ First MP Shane Jones was photographed on holiday holding an AR-15 rifle. Mr Peters is defending Mr Jones, telling Magic Talk host Peter Williams that his MP was just having fun "like most people do". "The ...
New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau was in attendance during the morning blessing of the Rotorua Lakefront development project. Around 60 people gathered on the shores of Lake Rotorua, including city mayor Steve Chadwick and deputy Dave Donaldson. The Lakefront development is a ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in on conversions of farmland to forestry, and also issued a warning to foreign-owned forestry companies that make up nearly 75 per cent of the industry. He said too many foreign companies had not provided enough access for domestic processors to get timber. ...
Speaking to Radio NZ, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the tightening of the parental category visa is a direct result of the Party’s coalition negotiations with the Labour Party. He said the new changes switch the financial onus from the parent moving to New Zealand to the child ...
The Coalition Government is set to cut red tape in the building and construction sector in an effort to allow more houses to be built, including prefabricated houses. The changes will enable the mass factory production of "high quality" buildings, slash the likely number of building inspections for factory produced ...
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to tackle homelessness and make sure everyone has a warm, dry home. And today, on World Homeless Day, we want to report back and update you on our progress so far. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
New Zealand Mānuka honey exporters have welcomed an initiative by the Coalition Government to help secure the term “mānuka honey” to be used exclusively by Kiwi exporters, ensuring that our multimillion-dollar industry is protected. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had recently announced that a Provincial Growth Funding of $5.7 ...
Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau has announced Provincial Growth Funding to ensure work opportunities in Turangi and Whanganui, through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi. A fund of $500,000 will go to Rafting NZ in Turangi for a 16-week river guide training course to train ...
Treasury has shown that the Coalition Government has a $7.5 billion surplus, which is $4 billion higher than what was expected in the 2019 Budget unveiled last May. It is also $2 billion higher than the actual surplus unveiled this time last year, and at a size that has not ...
Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson departs tomorrow for events and meetings in Japan and Vietnam. While in Japan, he will discuss economic and fiscal issues including meeting with the Minister of Finance, Taro Aso, and Minister of Economic and Fiscal Policy, Yasutoshi Nishimura. He will meet with the Minister of Education, ...
The Government’s Housing Dashboard released today confirms record numbers of state houses are under construction and shows the Government build programme is gaining momentum. “After nine years of inaction, and a hands-off attitude from the previous government we’re starting to see things move in the right direction for housing,” says ...
Mr Speaker, I wish to make a ministerial statement relating to the Auckland fire. The Government is closely monitoring the situation with the fire at the NZ International Convention Centre and is thankful that everyone is now safe. Firefighters are doing an incredible job managing the fire and bringing it ...
The Government is investing in ambitious research that will digitise Te Reo, grow the low-carbon protein efficient aquaculture industry, help interpret environmental trends, and large data sets says Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods. The four projects range from teaching Siri to speak Te Reo to crunching large environmental ...
A new education-to-employment brokerage service to strengthen connections between local employers and schools. Funding for more trades focused ‘speed-dating’ events to connect schools with employers. Promotional campaign to raise profile of vocational education. The Government is taking action to increase the number of young people taking up vocational education and ...
A Bill to improve prison security and ensure the fair, safe, and humane treatment of people in prison while upholding public safety has passed its third reading. Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says the Corrections Amendment Bill makes a number of changes to ensure the Corrections Act 2004 is fit for ...
Minister for Māori Development, Nanaia Mahuta, has selected Arihia Bennett MNZM, Chief Executive Officer of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, as the Te Puni Kōkiri appointed representative on the New Zealand-China Council. The New Zealand-China Council (the Council) was established in 2012 as a New Zealand led and funded organisation ...
Responsibility for processing the small number of Southern Response claims still to be settled will be transferred to EQC by the end of the year. “As claim numbers reduce, it no longer makes sense for the Crown to have two organisations processing the remaining Canterbury claims,” Grant Robertson says. “Since ...
Health Minister David Clark is encouraging Whanganui residents to take up the opportunity for free bowel screening, which can detect cancer early when it’s easier to treat. Over the next two years 12,000 Whanganui locals, aged 60 to 74 will be invited to participate in the National Bowel Screening ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio, heads to Oslo today to represent New Zealand at the sixth Our Ocean Conference, which is being hosted by the Norwegian Government from the 23-24 October. “The Our Ocean Conference mobilises real action on issues like marine plastic pollution and the impacts of ...
Two secondary-school initiatives are being expanded as part of the Government’s plan to see more young New Zealanders take up a trade to help close the skills gap. This includes the largest single increase in Trades Academy places in recent years. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Education Minister Chris ...
Session 4: Pacific Connectivity – Youth, Media and New Opportunities Kia ora tatou katoa and Warm Pacific greetings to one and all. Representatives of Tainui, the local people of the land, or manawhenua – the indigenous peoples of this area – have welcomed you this morning in accordance with ...
The Government today announced its support for a project that could substantially reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from cattle. The announcement was made as part of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor’s visit to Nelson’s Cawthron Aquaculture Park. The Cawthron Institute will receive $100,000 from the Government’s ...
Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni has welcomed the first reading of the New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Legislation Amendment Bill. “Every New Zealander has a stake in New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension,” says Carmel Sepuloni. “They are our most common form of social assistance – nearly 800,000 New ...
Babies in Auckland aged six months and over can receive a free vaccination and children will all have access to vaccines, Associate Minister of Health Julie Anne Genter announced today at Papatoetoe High School. The move comes as part of Government efforts to step up the fight against measles. ...
***Check against delivery*** Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here, and to have the honour of opening this important conference on behalf of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. Let us take the opportunity to acknowledge all the people who have helped make today possible, including our special ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash says the safety of frontline officers and members of the public will be the focus of a new trial of specialist Police response teams in three of our largest urban centres. Police have this morning released details of an initiative to be trialled in Counties Manukau, ...
The Minister of Fisheries is calling for entries for a new public award to celebrate innovation in our seafood sector. “I have established the Seafood Sustainability Awards to recognise and celebrate those throughout industry, tangata whenua and communities who demonstrate outstanding dedication and innovation towards the sustainability of New Zealand’s ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter welcomes leaders in the private sector taking action on closing their gender pay gaps to ensure a fairer workplace for all New Zealanders. Ms Genter today launched a new report, Addressing the gender pay gap and driving women’s representation in senior leadership, from the Champions for ...
Government Ministers today welcomed the release of a marine environment report highlighting the four key issues affecting our oceans, estuaries and coastlines. The release underlines the importance of government proposals to combat climate pollution, ensure clean freshwater, protect biodiversity, make land use more sustainable, and reduce waste and plastic. Environment ...
The Government has approved funding for a new acute mental health facility for Waikato which will provide better care and support to people with mental health and addiction issues. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Dr David Clark announced the $100 million project to replace the aging Henry Rongomau ...
The Government is making progress on its goal to integrate te reo Māori into education by 2025, with over 500 teachers and support staff already graduating from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. Kelvin Davis made the announcement at an awards ceremony in Waikanae today, for ...
Statistics Minister James Shaw has welcomed the first release of 2018 Census data. The first release of data today, 23 September, includes key data on population, regional growth, the number of homes and the size of different ethnic groups in New Zealand. Data from the 2018 Census will support the ...
Minister for Statistics James Shaw today announced a public consultation on a proposed algorithm charter for government agencies. The charter has been developed by the Government Chief Data Steward in response to growing calls for more transparency in government use of data. Computer algorithms – procedures or formulas for solving ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor, Climate Change Minister James Shaw and visiting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte co-hosted a business roundtable in Auckland this morning focused on working together to address climate change. “The Netherlands is an important partner for New Zealand. We share a strong agricultural history. Sustainable agribusiness and ...
The Government is taking action to build an inclusive economy where more of us receive our fair share at work and businesses can compete on great products and services, not undercutting wages and conditions, Immigration and Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. Two consultations launched today seek feedback ...
The future for New Zealand’s threatened indigenous freshwater fish looks brighter with the passing of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill in Parliament today said Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “Until now, our freshwater fish legislation has been 20 years out of date. We have lacked effective tools to ...
At 1.30pm tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis will join about 65 million people around the globe in ShakeOut, the world’s biggest earthquake drill. The annual drill is to remind people of the right action to take during an earthquake which is to Drop, Cover, Hold, and to practise their ...
Kiwis are benefiting from higher wage growth and low inflation under the Coalition Government. Stats NZ data out today shows the rise in the cost of living remains low, as annual Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation fell to 1.5% in September from 1.7% in June. “The low inflation comes as ...
New Zealand’s economic strength and resilience has been recognised in a major update on the state of the global economy. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook released overnight shows a reduced global growth forecast over the next two years as issues like the US-China trade war and Brexit take hold. ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little has today introduced a new Bill to prevent terrorism and support the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas. The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill gives the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to the High Court to impose control orders on New Zealanders who ...
A Bill that proposes targeted changes to simplify the processes for Māori land owners when engaging with the Māori Land Court has had its First Reading today. “The approach taken by the Government is to ensure that the protection of Māori land remains a priority as we seek to improve ...
Let me first thank all the new unionists and members in the room. There is nothing more important to improving people’s working lives than people making the decision to care, to get on board and help, to take up the reins and get involved. Congratulations to you. You bring the ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has signed a certificate exempting the activity of engine testing at Whenuapai Airbase from the Resource Management Act 1991. The Act gives the Minister of Defence the power to exempt activities for the purposes of national security. The certificate will mean the recent Environment Court ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced New Zealand will join the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action while attending APEC meetings in Chile. The objective of the 39 member Coalition is to share information and promote action to tackle climate change. It was formed in April this year, in ...
Feedback sought– Lyttelton commercial zone parking The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to remove on-site car parking requirements for new developments in the Lyttelton commercial zone. The proposal, by Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section 71 of the Greater ...
Hon Minister Poto Williams Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration MEDIA STATEMENT Tuesday 15 October 2019 Feedback sought – Hagley Oval The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal about Hagley Oval. The proposal was developed by Regenerate Christchurch ...
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...
"Let’s start by acknowledging that it has been a huge year. " Police Association Annual Conference James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou katoa. President of the Police Association, Chris Cahill; Members of the Association and ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister of Defence Ron Mark have announced the New Zealand Government’s decision to again deploy a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 (P-3) maritime patrol aircraft to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions imposing sanctions against North Korea. New ...
The latest in Sony’s stable of 90s remasters should come with a pair of rose-coloured glasses. Sam Brooks reviews the 2019 MediEvil remaster.In this generation of gaming, we’ve seen the glowed-up return of a few of our childhood avatars. The bandicoot spins back in, looking fresher than ever. The purple dragon ...
With over 15,000 public submissions on the bill, the Environment Select Committee had a lot to think about. Here’s everything they did – and didn’t – seek to change about the Zero Carbon Bill.Please do not print it out, but let it be known that the Environment Select Committee has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has finally seen off John Setka from the ALP, with the militant construction union leader capitulating and quitting the party. Setka, who lost a court case he brought in his fight ...
New Zealanders will almost certainly face a referendum next year on whether to legalise voluntary euthanasia after a make-or-break vote in Parliament cleared the way. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Nationals leader Michael McCormack has admitted his party should have handled better agriculture minister Bridget McKenzie’s bring-forward of the planned dairy code. Some Nationals were furious when McKenzie suddenly sped up the code’s preparation in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra While the drought continues to hit the Nationals’ constituents hard, the party faces a testing terrain on a political level. In this episode of Politics with Michelle Grattan, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack acknowledges the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy – in the job for for just weeks after moving across from the department of infrastructure last month – has dismissed talk of spending big on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Downie, Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow, Australian National University It’s time we started talking about the principal opponents to action on climate change – fossil fuel industries. If history has taught us anything, it is when oil, gas and coal industries ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodie Grigg, Research Associate at the National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University My friends are taking ecstasy at raves and music festivals. Is it safe? — Anonymous Key points no drug use, including ecstasy, is 100% safe festivals can present ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Transport Todd Niall (Stuff): Auckland Light Rail: Goff says it’s the Government’s call Richard Harman ...
It isn't the first time Tiwai Point's owners have warned they may close the aluminium smelter, but this Government is unlikely to be handing out financial assistance. ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says APEC will definitely still be held in Auckland in 2021, despite the destruction caused by the fire at the NZ International Convention Centre. ...
The headline said it all. Stats NZ has released 2018 census data on New Zealanders’ commuting habits and, guess what, we love a motorised polluter. “Car streets ahead for travel to work and education” was the heading. It should have been “cars rule, all other options drool”.New cycleways are under construction ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Liu, Chancellors Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Fashion and Textiles Designer, University of Technology Sydney The tech giants Amazon, Google and Facebook have all begun to use machine learning to give you tips on what to wear. Is fashion styling the next field ...
Prime Minister is meeting with officials at the scene of a massive blaze in Auckland's CBD. Watch a live video of a media stand-up with FENZ and the PM. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vanessa Bowden, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Newcastle It is becoming increasingly possible that sea-level rise of a metre or more will occur this century. You might expect this threat to preoccupy coastal homeowners. But many deny the need to act, for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chloe Watfern, Scientia PhD scholar, UNSW At Studio A, on the fourth floor of the Crows Nest community centre, a group of artists is working quietly. An occasional burst of laughter erupts from a corner of the studio. It makes its way ...
In response to Meghan Markle’s admission that she’s finding it a struggle to be a new mother in the media spotlight, columnists across the globe have banded together to launch a charity to support all those women who ‘have it worse’, Emily Writes can exclusively reveal.Meghan Markle – duchess, new ...
Will New Zealand’s largest construction firm have to write off yet more money over the troubled International Convention Centre project?Both Fletcher Building and SkyCity’s share prices have felt the impact of the devastating fire that has raged at Auckland’s half completed convention centre for over a day now. More than ...
The new and spectacular atlas We Are Here is page after page of haunting, hella beautiful visual data, each chapter introduced with an essay. This one, Lost in the Forest, opens the section on people. At some point in the 1990s, one of the creators of this book tried to impress ...
Kassie Hartendorp (Ngāti Raukawa) has been looking to Māori stories and storytellers to learn more about our gender identities before colonisation. There’s a lot to be read between the lines, she writes.Te ao Māori can be a very gendered place to be. In some settings, your gender can tell you ...
The Shouting Valley is a powerful group exhibition at the Gus Fisher Gallery in Auckland that interrogates and gives voice to the people caught between borders. But is the real paradox of this politically charged show the limit of what art can do? Lana Lopesi reviews. “What’s bad about borders?” asked ...
The future of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is under question again as majority owner, mining giant Rio Tinto, is reviewing the plant's future. ...
There will be another crucial vote for the voluntary euthanasia bill later today - whether or not a referendum will be held at the 2020 general election. ...
It was never intended that state owned enterprises should use their monopoly commercial or regulatory power to stifle competition, yet it is at least arguable that is what has happened says Peter Dunne. ...
Go Bus drivers in South Auckland will continue refusing to collect fares tomorrow as their protest continues with the intent of avoiding disruption to passengers while highlighting the need for fair wage negotiations with their employer, FIRST Union ...
Smoke continues to billow in downtown Auckland 24 hours after fire broke out in the incomplete complex.Shortly after 1pm yesterday came the first reports of a fire on the site of the SkyCity New Zealand International Convention Centre in central Auckland. That brought a massive mobilisation of emergency services, evacuations ...
He Kākano Ahau is a podcast by writer and activist Kahu Kutia (Ngāi Tūhoe) that explores stories of Māori in the city, and weaves together strands of connection. In episode one: the legacy of urban marae Tapu te Ranga.I grew up where the tarseal on the road crumbles away into ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Australians are divided over whether the nation’s universities have too many foreign students, according to the Australian National University’s ANUpoll, released Wednesday. In the polling, 52.8% said the mix between foreign and domestic students was ...
National's leader Simon Bridges says a bill imposing restrictions on people returning after fighting for extremist groups would only keep New Zealanders "half safe". ...
Alex Casey talks to Leigh Hart about the return of Late Night Big Breakfast, the finest morning TV parody show New Zealand has ever made. Late Night Big Breakfast is set to return to TVNZ in 2020 after a five year hiatus, creator and comedian Leigh Hart has confirmed. Filmed in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tom Gordon, PhD candidate. Sydney University Physics Education Research (SUPER) group, University of Sydney If you want to get good marks in your exams, there’s no substitute for study. So do past exams, go over your notes, read what you need to ...
Otago University academic Chris Brickell wonders whether his new book on LGBT objects ought to be the sort of thing bookshops would want to have on their shelves. ...
South Aucklanders from Mangere to East Tamaki will be riding their Go Bus services to work for free tomorrow morning, as FIRST Union bus drivers opt out of collecting fares for their employer in an industrial action designed to show the wider public ...
What do we make of the Air New Zealand decision to quit the Auckland-Los Angeles-London route? Nothing much as it simply reflects the changing dynamics of the airline industry. Gone are the days when Air NZ took the McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 into the fleet and began flying Los Angeles, then ...
Was the SkyCity Convention Centre construction site at higher risk of fire than any other construction site or building? Alex Braae asks the experts.A fire at the SkyCity Convention Centre construction site has continued to burn this morning, after a night of lighting up the Auckland CBD sky.The fire, which ...
Sky City and Fletcher Building see another "material delay" to opening of International Convention Centre as fire still rages. Plan B needed for APEC in November 2021, says Goff ...
First it was KiwiBuild, now it’s Auckland’s light rail that’s looking increasingly shambolic. Jenée Tibshraeny from Interest asks what’s going on, and how thin is that ice that transport minister Phil Twyford is skating on.The Opposition’s latest attack phrase aimed at the government is set to be one of its ...
At last, a break in the clouds for NZ’s dairy farmers : Fonterra suppliers could be looking at a sharp lift in income, as the co-op revises its forecast range for the milk price to $6.55-$7.55 kg/MS.And the signals are strong enough to underpin projections the milk price will rise ...
Members of the Indian community are angry at an immigration policy change making it harder for to bring spouses to NZ - but Shane Jones says anyone not happy should "catch the next flight home." ...
On October 7, New Zealand’s Labour Party-led coalition government announced draconian class-based restrictions on immigration. From February 2020, the government will reopen the Parent Category visa nearly four years after the previous National Party ...
Organise Aotearoa joined a rally held by the Chilean expatriate community on Tuesday outside the Chilean Embassy in Wellington, following widespread repression and brutality against protesters by President Sebastián Piñera’s armed forces. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Shine, Robinson Fellow, University of Sydney Have you ever sat down to complete your morning crossword or Sudoku and wondered about what’s happening in your brain? Somewhere in the activity of the billions of neurons in your brain lies the code ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mehmet Ozalp, Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University The five-day ceasefire negotiated by US Vice President Mike Pence and Turkish President Recep Tayyib ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne The unprecedented blackout of front pages by Australia’s newspaper publishers this week is a highly significant event in Australian political and media history. It represents the completion of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Hansen, Chief of Staff, The Conversation In recent years coconut water has left the palm-treed shores of tropical islands where tourists on lounge chairs stick straws straight into the fruit, and exploded onto supermarket shelves – helped along by beverage giants ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Petterson, Professor of Geology, Auckland University of Technology CC BY-NDClimate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert ...
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Soper’s daily whinge and smear against the government.
He really is a nasty piece of work.
This time he has a go at Golriz Ghahraman.
What a slimeball.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11948555
And there there is Trevett’s petty attack.
‘Ardern flourishes in ‘swamp of secrecy’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11948523
The Herald really does not like this government.
And it has miserable puppets who would sell their soul for a pay cheque.
I wonder if Soper can see the irony in his closing line;
“It’s just that one side has been consistently and conveniently highlighted over the other.”
Didn’t take long to get from Kiwiblog and Whaleoil to the Herald did it.
Brilliant observation.
Remember how John Key’s new government in 2008, came in on a raft of two track dirty politics and soft media infotainment spin? And then they were like the deer in the headlines, without much of a plan, so…..
2009 John Key’s much touted Job Summit, threw up “3 Big Ideas”. Audrey Young raved in the NZ Herald:
The Thiel deal,worked out rather well.For Thiel of course,although Joyce said it was Labour’s fault.
Spinning like a spinning thing:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11948524
But she admits that her profile page on the Green Party website, which states that she has put African leaders on trial for abusing their power, “could be clearer”.
Theres a slight difference between prosecuting war criminals and defending war criminals
[lprent: You are simply lying at several levels. But I think this is easier to demonstrate rather than explain at any level..
1. There is no significiant difference between defending and prosecuting. Both are part of a court process that leads to judgement.
2. Her bio actually said – read it carefully
3. Putting people on trial is not a prosecution prerogative. It applies to both defense and and prosecution.
4. I think you are trolling and as a local prosecutor and judge, we clearly don’t need a defense. Therefore there should be no trial to look at the actual circumstances.
5. Banned for 1 month for crimes against robust debate..
6. This is not arbitrary in anyway. It is a simple matter of arbitrary lynch mob justice without due process.
]
And since Golriz Ghahraman has experience of both, she knows an infinite amount more about the difference than you do, but then so does the stenographer.
I bet she also knows that saying you prosecuted war criminals sounds a lot better than saying you defended them
there’s a slight difference between ‘defending war criminals’ and working as an intern on a defence team for the war criminals
That line of attack is an attack on the entire justice system. Shall we start listing which National Party MPs have worked as defence lawyers?
Everyone who works in a courtroom enables the prosecution of alleged offenders.
Didn’t take long to get from Kiwiblog and Whaleoil to the Herald did it.
It never does. The Herald should cut out the middle-man – ditch Soper and put DPF on a retainer for its right-wing propaganda stories.
Yup, from sewer to MSM as the National party smear machine cranks up and all the MSM journos gather around the outflow pipe mouths agape. After all, Farrar negates the need to think, or to resrach, and he helpfully even writes your questions for you.
Soper in particular seems to have decided to wage a misogynistic war on anyone who dares to commit the crime of being young, female and more powerful than him. Linda Clark got it 100% right when she pretty much name checked him and his attitude and told he needed to wake up or ship out.
It’s obvious what the Nats and their MSM enablers are trying to do. The accusations are going to come thick and fast through to the end of this parliamentary session (ie. just before Xmas) leaving a trail of perplexed voters to gather around the barbecues wondering whether they made the right choice voting for Labour/Green or NZ First – whichever. It doesn’t matter the claims are nothing more than garbled rubbish. Its the first part of a slow, subliminal manipulation of their minds.
I noted the sharp edge of cold fury in Barry Soper’s voice at the first stand-up media interviews which followed Winston Peters’ announcement. I knew then he was going to take a vicious approach and he has clearly influenced the little wife, Heather DPA.
+111
Good analysis Anne. Anyone who thought winning the election was winning the war needs to think again. These sort of attacks will be relentless.
Ghahraman is a genocide enabler
A.
[RL: This smells like a particularly silly attempt at trolling. End it here. No further warning.]
How exactly do you come up with that piece of nonsense, Antoine?
She defended one of the most heinous acts of the 20th century.
A.
Repeat of my comment to marty mars below in case you miss it.
Have you read Andrew Geddis’ piece on Pundit?
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/did-golriz-ghahraman-do-anything-wrong
That’s kinda the thing about human rights; even the worst of the bad guys have some. It’s part of the complexity of being a human rights lawyer that sometimes you’re defending them.
“She defended one of the most heinous acts of the 20th century.”
That’s a silly claim to make. They defended the person accused, not the act.
Antoine is a dog felcher.
Do I have this game right? It looks like fun but I’m not clear on how to play.
@RL
Ban me if you want, I believe what she did was wrong.
[RL: I don’t care what you believe here, I do care that you dropped a controversial comment with no supporting argument or citation. That ‘smells’ very much like typical hit and run troll behaviour. I moderate on behaviour not content; make your case honestly and I’m unlikely to intervene.]
A.
Bot Antoine, I see you added can’t read to the list of your idiocy.
If you need help with a word, feel free to ask.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Trolling
You realise that without defence lawyers we can’t put people on trial at all? If you want genocide and other human rights abuses to be prosecuted, you have to have court staff.
Take your notion to its logical conclusion and you’re effectively saying that the International Court of Justice enables war crimes, and that our court system enables murder.
Is that what you’re saying?
No!
There is a role for defense lawyers in the legal system and we need a legal system. That doesnt mean I have to like or endorse those who choose to defend heinous crim inals.
A.
No. That isn’t what you said. Your endearments and endorsements have no value, so with-holding them is of no consequence. However, you made a very specific allegation against people who work on legal defence teams – that their job enables crime.
Are you now backing down from that into a vague sense of disapproval? If so, how about you take some personal responsibility for your disgusting false accusation?
Grow a spine.
To work to get a guilty criminal acquitted, enables more crime of the same sort. I don’t resile from that
A.
First the verdict, then the trial. Joseph Nzirorera would be proud of you.
That’s not actually the role of a defense lawyer, any more than the role of a prosecutor is “to get an innocent person convicted”.
Often the morally bankrupt or hard of thinking reduce the functions to simply “get a guilty criminal acquitted” or “innocent person convicted”, but the role of the court is to try to determine the truth. The prosecution present their case, the defense present the case as it appeared to the defendant, and the court decides. Neither party in an adversarial system is allowed to mislead the court, AFAIK. Correct me if I’m wrong.
And it’s ok to work for a company that sells a product that kills people and has killed more than the all of Rwanda?
No! That is bad too
Chris Bishop
I never liked Bishop
Why is it unreasonable to point out that Golriz Ghahraman acted for the defence in the genocide trials. When you read her bio on the Green website it gave the impression she was prosecuting genocide, not just in Cambodia but also in Rawanda.
Now I have no problem with her acting for the defence, but she should not have given the wrong impression.
It is not unfair for a journalist to point that out. It is not the act of a slimeball to do so, nether is it sexist.
This site is always saying how terrible National MP’s on the basis they are all psychopaths and liars. But you can’t stand even the slightest adverse comment about those from the left.
What about accusing her of enabling genocide? Which is what “the left” is actually defending her against.
Can you help me understand right wing thinks on this issue please? When you collaborated with Nicky Hager, were you enabling war crimes or Al Quaeda?
What about the Law Commission? You definitely must’ve enabled some pretty serious crimes there, and I don’t just mean the things the National Party wanted 😉
Yes, if we use that ruler to measure Golriz every lawyer that ever defends a criminal is somehow implicated in the crime.
It’s crucial that the crime and the analytical dissection of it after the event are mutually exclusive.
If Golriz’s bio implies she rode around the world on a big white stallion solving the war crime woes of the world, if we all agree everyone is entitled to a quality defence, she did. I lie in mine, I was useless at Rugby.
OAB,
My comment was in response to Ed’s initial comment, but there have been so many other comments added, it is distanced from that – probably also the result of using an iPhone.
David Farrar on Kiwiblog put the issue in quire a reasonable way, but some of the commenters on his site, not so much. But then some commenters on any of the main political sites use extravagant language accusing people of all sorts of things, and acting from the basest of reasons. The Standard is certainly not immune from that.
DPF put it in as appalling a way as Phil Quin did – as a propaganda call to all those on the right who’d like to skip the human rights stuff and get on with the punishments.
Some one on radio recently was saying how much was paid by observers to watch when they had really brutal punishments. I don’t think that human nature has left those of today unconcerned about the niceties of justice and rule of law, more enlightened than in the past.
There are some amazing things in this piece:
If a crowd was denied the spectacle of an execution on the allotted day, occasionally there was some gruesome compensation. In England in 1221, Thomas of Eldersfield was reprieved from hanging at the last moment; in a show of mercy, he was blinded and castrated instead. Robert Bartlett describes the scene: ‘the eyes were thrown to the ground, the testicles used as footballs, the local lads kicking them playfully at the girls’.
http://www.historytoday.com/sean-mcglynn/violence-and-law-medieval-england
Here is some homework for you in case you hadn’t caught up with these. Good primary school info.
http://primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/tudors/other.htm
David Farrar on Kiwiblog put the issue in quire a reasonable way
Farrar? You say “reasonable” because it suits you. “Tendentious” and “disingenuous” are words that come to my mind. You know perfectly well that the Penguin never lets his hands get dirty in public and encourages his troll farm to do the dirty work for him.
but some of the commenters on his site, not so much
What a pity that because we lack your smarmy manners we’ll never be admitted to your gentleman’s club of “reasonable” men. Oh dear.
Come on wayne, we have all looked at the whale oil – we are far from that gutter.
Have you ever put a comment there about the sexist, homophobic, and racist garbled crap that comes out of those sad excuses for human beings mouths?
Wayne has never experienced racism or sexism directed against him personally and therefore it does not exist or at least is not significant.
If you can’t see why it’s unreasonable, you need help.
Ah, I see. He’s the type of person who thinks that people once accused of a crime shouldn’t have any defence and would probably do away with the trial altogether. And, once the trial is over and they’re found guilty, say that the lawyers who made up the defence team are just as bad as the ones found guilty.
Yeah, got it.
Ed (1) … proof Natz (through Joyce) still pulling the strings of msm, with NZH dredging up whatever is possible to smear the coalition government, regardless of how truthful or inconsequential it is!
Golriz was doing her job, as most lawyers are expected to do. Look at Key’s former job as a currency trader. Bet some of the activity there wasn’t above board! Was that ever challenged by msm? No!
Natz will give itself a breakdown at this rate!
Congratulations to Prince Harry and Megan Markle for there engagement there wedding is good for OUR worlds society.
I only advocate Vapours as a tool to give up smoking as I’m using Vapours to give up. The only thing we should be breathing into our lungs is clean air we need to set a age limit R 18 and a display/advertising restrictions to limit the appeal and take up of vaping by our youth. PS your a bit out numbered Hillary you need a lady friend on the breakfast show Ka Pai
Monarchy, we don’t need no stinking monarchy.
But The Treaty adam is between Maori and the Monarchy – not the NZ Govt. This is an issue that if NZ were to progress towards complete independence from England would need to be resolved.
Paraphrasing from ‘Blazing Saddles?’ lol
I agree with your comment Adam, but I also have to say, it’s awesome when two people fall in love and get married for the right reasons, his mum would have be thrilled.
Give me monarchy not Trump or Key or Shipley. Let’s have the real thing not the nouveau riche.
You want a genuine old English German lady who thinks her shit don’t stink? WTF for?
She speaks more nicely than you. I like a bit of style in my leaders.
But she is no leader of ours. She has done absolutely nothing as our Head of State. She was very polite in how she told Maori to piss off when ask to have some honour and look at the treaty her institution signed.
Oh, and i don’t want to be your leader.
Ah but will she then be deported like all the other foreigners married to Brits.
So your show is more gender equality Ka pai
I now see that the national opposition is attempting to stall the new government’s plan to stop labour/NZF/Greens coalition “17 goals” and run then out of time, by jaming Labour with over 6200 “spam” questions.
So Jacinda needs to show Government “leadership” and need to rush through an urgency bill to reverse the national party changes they (national) placed to allow this attempt to close down the new government, and restore the former system preventing this “tea party style” abuse of our parliamentary system..
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/11/how-the-government-s-tracking-on-its-100-day-plan.html
“The Government is going all out to tick off all 17 goals on its 100-day plan.
A hundred days. Just over three months. It sounds like plenty of time until you blink and realise a month has passed since the Government was sworn in. They have until February 3.”
I think you are right cleangreen. It is time Ardern showed some steel and dealt with these National ratbags. There is nothing nice about the Natz, they are at war and need to be exposed for their spiteful anti democratic behaviour. New Zealanders deserve better.
Yes garabaldi;
https://www.parliament.nz/media/3552/2017-sitting-programme.pdf
Labour coalition only have – 6th 7th 8th, – 12th, 13th, 14th December; – and the xmas party celebrations need to be be put in there somewhere we assume too.
hey have their budget to release and befre 3rd February need to make good on the ’17 goals’ as the ‘100 day pledge’ to NZ.
Labour have just six more days in parliament these emails this year, so we are screwed unless Jacinda can change the legislation today.
Or else Labour are left bound up with these 6200 ‘spam’ emails now and labour now has no choice but to pass a ’emergency bill’ to stop “email spaming” forthwith.
it is preventing government to function under legislation national passed. Remove all National legislation labour must in all areas also.
I knew national would leave ‘hand grenades’ to stymie this new government so they need to remove all national toxic legislation now.
That sitting calendar for 2017 is the one originally in place prior to the election and is now out of date.
Following the swearing in of the new government a revised sitting programme for the remainder of 2017 was drawn up in conjunction with the proposed sitting calendar for 2018.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/sitting-calendar-proposed-for-2018/
So Parliament will sit for the next four weeks from today, Tues 28 Nov through until 6pm Thurs, 21 December – not just the two weeks originally planned (6th 7th 8th, – 12th, 13th, 14th December).
Is is highly likely that Parliament will also go into urgency in order to get the PPL legislative amendments through and possibly other legislative business prior to the Christmas/New Year close down – including possibly reversing some Nats legislation.
Thanks for giving us the updated sitting schedules veutoviper,
I went on the usual site but being that the new government had “a minefield” of changes that were needed to be made with the whole moviing of the old tired national mob out into the ‘lower government’ buildings and the new labour coalition Government newly placed on the ninth floor of the ‘Beehive building’.
We know only to well how difficult that two weeks it took to get the new Government communications up and running.
I understood all this as I was employed by the ‘fourth largest communication company globally’ (Bell) and used to place new systems in Government buildings also.
As our many NGO emails went un-anwered for weeks until we got hold of a Government secretary and were told that a “new communication system was in the process of being installed” and they had problems, so I guess this is catch up time for all.
No problems, cleangreen.
The Parliament website has actually been very quickly updated this round after the election. The new MPs were listed etc within a day of the election etc. and other needed amendments up very quickly.
However, I did find it took a few minutes to relocate the link on the Parliament website to the revised sitting schedule for 2017. I knew that it had been changed but it was not immediately visible because it was included in the article re the proposed 2018 sitting programme.
Having worked in government for many years in Wellington (including very closely working with and in the Parliament precinct), I am pretty sure the actual Parliament website (and related staff etc) would have been unaffected by the physical moves, changes to communications etc related to the change of government, relocation of MPs and parties. Fun days, but actually very much highly planned and managed chaos!
veutoviper thanks for that.
All good now we need to ‘stand in line with national waiting for the reples from the 42 emails we have sent the new government’.
Now our NGO representing many communities wonder if the national email nonsene has now prevented the Labour coalition government from responding to other questions for the community also now?
So that puts the public interest now behind national party’s own interests, and that means national wont care about their own impact upon our communities interests?
Maybe national should have thought clearly how their ‘obstruction’ process over 6200 emails of questions was going to impact on all NZ communities.
Maybe the government could answer the questions properly: https://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/questions-but-no-answers-with-thanks-to-david/
An interesting take by the ever-pedantic Graeme Edgeler, but i also suggest people read the comments which put things into a bit more perspective in terms of National’s actions while in government. In particular, it is worth reading Katherine Moody’s comment here
https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/legal-beagle-questions-but-no-answers-with/?p=377313#post377313
This includes a number of replies by Key and his ministers to very similar diary related questions while in government. The wording of these replies is not only similar to one another of these Nat Ministers, but also to that now being used by the new Labour/NZF/Green government Ministers.
Examples:
Hon Bill English (Minister of Finance) replied: As Minister of Finance I have a large number of meetings in Wellington and around New Zealand. I do not believe it is a good use of staff time to itemise my meetings or engagements, nor attempt to list the names of every person I met over the course of a month. If the member is interested in a specific issue or organisations then I might be able to provide more detailed information.
Hon Steven Joyce (Minister for Economic Development) replied: I hold a large number of meetings both formally and informally each month with a wide range of people and discuss a wide range of topics. I do not consider it reasonable use of official’s time to provide the Member with a comprehensive list of all such meetings, nor is it feasible as the information requested is often not specifically captured by my records. If the Member could be more specific about a particular area of interest I would be happy to consider his request.
English just on on Morning Report claiming National had raised the bar for transparency in government over the past 9 years and that Labour needed to up their game as they were stuck in time a decade ago. LOL. This from the party that totally subverted the OIA request process over the past 9 years.
Hypocrite.
He was also asked if Smith was right in claiming National won the election. He wouldn’t say yes or no but his reply was something like “well we got the most votes
and that’s really unusual”.
Yes Grey it was rough waking up to English in full Billshit mode.
National admitted at one stage during the last 9 years that it did its best to stymie OIA requests and it is legendary how under-resourced the Ombudsman became under the Nats with massive delays.
Ian Lees-Galloway was excellent on Morning Report this morning talking about Paid Parental Leave and how Labour has cooperated with the Nats on this despite Amy Adams negativity-worth a listen.
Here is a link to the excellent Ian L-G interview (via the related RNZ news article with a lovely picture of Ian holding Willow Jean Prime’s baby as an added bonus).
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018623290/adams-parental-leave-bill-unnecessary-galloway
And for anyone wanting to hear/see the Bill English Morning Report interview, here are the links.
(The first one is a lead-in to the actual interview with English. The actual interview was pretty soft with no real challenges from Espiner and the interview ended on a weak excuse by Espiner that the reception was not good as English was on his cellphone).
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018623288/govt-backsliding-on-transparency-pledge-bill-english
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018623286/national-slams-govt-as-secretive-disorganised
100% veutoviper,
Talking about hypocracy we met S Joyce twice in three years and the fisrt meeting he was ‘slightly prepared to assist our comittee about saving our Gisborne/Napier rail.
But in the second meeting he was aggressively ‘aloof’ as he proudly publiclly announced that ‘his study’ he produced (since debunked by BERL) was proof the rail must close.
Joyce said the rail is ‘not worth re-openning’.
Later it was our Labour MP Phil Twyford as acting transport spokesperson that placed his ‘expose’ on the web how S Joyce as Minister of Transport allowed kiwirail to remove the $200 Million from kiwirails maintainence fund and at the select committee he was at kiwirail admitted is was that which closed the napier gisborne rail.
So S Joyce is both a true liar and a possible criminal for intentionally causing the destruction of part of the publically owned rail services and harmed the SOE.
Hypocracy pure and simple.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1302/S00183/kiwirail-admits-lack-of-maintenance-led-to-wash-out.htm
Grey Area (4) … you quote the following …
“English just on on Morning Report claiming National had raised the bar for transparency in government over the past 9 years ….”
Aha, now I see. English preparing for his new position, when the knives come out … as a comedian.
Okay, so I’m more than a tad uncomfortable with Ardern’s reluctance to release the 33/38 page coalition discussion document….
But, but, Bill ‘the Lizard’ English’s sanctimonious prattle is genuine high end, puke making hypocrisy…. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/344807/new-govt-has-no-follow-through-national
“By any international standard the last government was open and transparent, and this government, as with many other things, has expressed these high-minded intentions and then fails to follow through.”
Mr English said the previous National-led government lifted the bar a long way on transparency.
“We stressed the early release of cabinet papers, the full release of budget documents, including draft reports which had not really been done before.
“The extensive release of data because that’s such an important part of being able to monitor what a government is doing and how it is doing it.”
This …. http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/informationreleases/ris/pdfs/ris-moh-fcc-may13.pdf Bill, is not ‘raising the bar’.
PS….thinking that a ‘leftish’ government would be uncomfortable with such a heavily redacted justification for legislation that removed the rights of New Zealanders I did email the Head Office and requested that the blanked out bits of this document be revealed.
Heard nothing yet. I guess they’re busy trying to spin not releasing documents their coalition partner said would be released.
SSDD.
Well thats the thing isn’t it, you can say things in opposition that you can’t say or do when in power
its easy to talk transperancy when you’re the opposition but a different story when you’re in power as Jacinda “transparent” Ardern is now discovering
Puckish Rougue; –
So the last Government (National) recieved 105 emails from our NGO over five years as I am secretary of it, and only two of the 63 National ministers only answered (on one small section of only of a small”side issue”.)
Question
1/ Is this because we are not officially a government agency but an NGO Puckish Rougue?
And more to the point (PR) question two; –
2/ Are we to expect the same from this new Labour lead government too (PR) Puckish Rouge; – or are you just another “PR” for the last corrupt government ?
I’d have thought that if you campaign on openness and transparency then you should be open and transparent when in power
And donkey did the same, and I did not see you complaining when he was not transparent.
Just pointing out your hypocrisy Puckish Rogue, just your hypocrisy.
Predictable reply from an ‘obstructionist’ so do us all a favour & get over loosing Puckish Rougue eh!
You failed to answer question 1+2 I asked you; –
Yet is it because you are you afraid too?
If so then you are guilty of what you claim Labour coalition are guilty of , now that we clearly see you are doing now?
So dont blame Labour for not answering your fabricated 6200 spam emails (PR).
You are totally wrong if you think labour will be stymied by your oppostion party’s little plan as the labour coalition wont be stopped.
Sitting on a 2016 report into the benefits of rail because it doesn’t fit with dinosaur National Party “thinking”, that’s being transparent.
1000% Grey area.
Rail is the enemy to a former national Government with a man running it (s joyce) who is rightly called “the tarseal king” who we believe he has interests in trucking we have been informed.
+ infinity Grey Area
The show must go on I don’t see these people logic in following me around everywhere I go Im sure there are other people that deserve there attention. My neo liberal neighbour must have run out of fireworks you see there are a lot of these people in this little suburb they use fireworks to try and intimidat me. My dates were wrong it’s been 13 years of harassment from the Gisborne man and about 3 1/2 years that he landed his glider on the farm. The Rock one time I got challened to drink a jar of rum can’t remember what happened but a m8 told me I was getting a long with the best crayfishmans daughter lol the next time this guy 2 weeks before try to fight me I put him in his place he made out he was over it and his m8 challenged me to drink a jar of rum woke up the next morning broke ribbs squash nose this guy waited till I fell asleep and attacked me that was a good lesson I don’t get pissed and always have a gard up. Kia kaha
So he beat you up because he thought you hassled his daughter when you were pissed?
In Singapore, when the economy starts doing really well again, the public servants get a one month bonus:
http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/civil-servants-to-get-one-months-year-end-bonus-as-economy-does-better
All 84,000 civil servants will receive a year-end Annual Variable Component (AVC) of one month’s pay – higher than the 0.5 month they received in 2016, according to their Public Service Division.
That would motivate those lovelies in MBIE and Treasury and DPMC to pull their finger out and make some serious moves.
I am all for the Singapore model; top tax rate of 22%, no CGT, corporate tax rate of 17% etc
https://www.guidemesingapore.com/business-guides/taxation-and-accounting/personal-tax/singapore-personal-income-tax-guide
Oh I also forgot, The People’s Action Party is Centre Right.
Someone called ThatcherForEver is all for a police state? Quelle surprise…
Along with someone called “Ad”, such a strange world we live in..
The policy is possible without a police state of any kind.
Better to have a motivated public service, just like the private sector.
Bonuses or at-risk components for number of children taken out of poverty. Start there.
Singapore voted for it
What’s your point , Milt?
My point is that right-wing authoritarians are usually keen on police states. Unfortunately, left-wing authoritarians often have the same problem.
Yeah, and then they take you to the cleaners through indirect taxation.
As mentioned, Singaporeans have been told that we pay low income taxes, but when you compare income taxes with indirect taxes, you would see that Singaporeans pay 3.5 times as much into indirect taxes than direct taxes, whereas Swedes and Finns pay about the same indirect taxes as direct taxes, and the Danes pay only about a lesser 70% of direct taxes into indirect taxes
https://thehearttruths.com/category/how-much-tax-are-singaporeans-really-paying/
Bonus payments are a dubious incentive. Empowering people to do their jobs and do them well works out better in the long term.
100% Molly right with you there.
Probably this will blow up – I was a bit surprised that she was on the defense team.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11948524
Have you read Andrew Geddis’ piece on Pundit?
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/did-golriz-ghahraman-do-anything-wrong
That’s kinda the thing about human rights; even the worst of the bad guys have some. It’s part of the complexity of being a human rights lawyer that sometimes you’re defending them.
Thanks. I get human rights are universal and our system provides support for all sides and I struggle with it. I struggle that mass murderers get more rights than the many they murdered. I struggle that a sicko can do sicko things throughout their life and at the 11th hour have a big realisation and seek forgiveness. I struggle with these moral dilemmas.
Working the defence is something I couldn’t do. My personal revulsion at someone’s deeds would really interfere with fulfilling my obligations to that person’s defence.
Personally I’m of the opinion that someone that deliberately interferes with someone else’s human rights should forfeit their own. However, even in that mindset, there’s still the issue of determining what culpable deeds have actually been done. But as a general view, it’s at odds with the whole philosophical structure around justice that we’ve built up over time. And I’m really not interested in trying to think through the wrinkles of trying to replace that structure, especially since there’s no chance significant change will happen. At best there will be tinkering around the edges.
Yep I’m a bit like you on all that. I tend to imagine neutral is a fallacy in a lawyer anyway but compartmentalism isn’t.
Without wanting to selectively misquote you:
Personally I’m of the opinion that someone that deliberately interferes with someone else’s human rights should forfeit their own.
as I think you clearly understand, the whole point of a trial is to determine culpability as an outcome, not as an apriori assumption. Or to put it in the more familiar parlance “innocent until proven guilty”.
That’s not just a human right, it’s a very real protection we afford defendants due to the enormous disparity of resources between the state and the individual. From this came another famous legal dictum ‘that it’s better ten guilty people go free than one innocent person be convicted”. In other words it is a concious feature of our legal system to weight the odds in favour of the defendants. Even culpable ones.
Part of the problem here is the internet has let us all indulge our fantasies of playing at judge, jury and executioner to the extent that these old and important ideas have become diminished, sometimes dismissed altogether.
They are just ideas not truths or absolutes, they are human conceived and made and thus are fallable and subjective.
For instance, innocent until proven guilty etc is mocked by police and judicial discrimination based on skin colour!!!
Those are all points that need to be repeatedly hammered, particularly with the likes of Quin that don’t get it.
But I think your point below at 8.2 expresses a key idea most concisely: if the accused doesn’t have a capable defense team, then the whole process lacks legitimacy. In that context, the defense is just as important as the prosecution for delivering justice. For the victims as well as broader society.
There is also the idea, that the defense is as robust and lawful as possible, reducing the chance of a mistrial or a later successful appeal.
The justice system needs to be robust and competent and lawyers with integrity on both sides will improve it.
Her final quote nails it:
The whole point is that in order for a trial to have any legitimacy it’s essential for the defendants to have access to a legal defense. Someone has to do this. Quin’s failure to understand is not just embarrassing, it’s kind of chilling.
Very odd. His point seems to be that defence lawyers somehow endorse their client’s alleged crimes and that to be a defence lawyer you mustn’t have strong morals.
Quin seems a vindictive type and I suspect he’s jealous of other’s achievements.
He seems unhappy with the website info where it played up certain aspects.
I read the opposite. That he didn’t have much problem with the green website (I did read that somewhere but can’t find it), but that she chose to work on the defence team saying, “of all the ways to save the world, she chose to send killers back to the villages where their victims’ families are trying to rebuild their lives.”
He must find all defence work reprehensible.
He’s a dickhead bigtime
Most likely Quin has just picked up the ‘doofus of the week’ award off Nick Smith, but it’s an especially bizarre charge to lay against her, given what I personally understand of Gharaman’s family story,
It’s kind of right wing nut job.
What about mob lawyers – are they just giving their clients a fair go. Lawyers are just like other people – fallable, greedy, stupid and selfish – and with all the qreat qualities too, like compassion.
I get the system and I find it challenging as well.
‘Everyone’ hates defence lawyers until they’re accused of something.
Quote – Al Capone or genocidal mass murderer?
All those things may well be true in general marty, but in this instance it’s was a young barrister doing tough work, (pro bono IIRC) in a tough environment for all the right reasons.
Indeed that’s the main focus of the interview; the vast gulf between the realities on the ground in Rwanda and NZ.
There are lots of jobs I couldn’t and wouldn’t do and I have some admiration and at least respect for those that can, even with the personal cost that this must entail for them. This is one of those cases.
And on that I think we wholeheartedly agree.
Marty is it ok for a lawyer to work for a company that sells a legal product that has lead to the death of millions world wide?
I think moral questions are often the most intellectually interesting.
I think yes and also no if they ignored evidence in their defence/legal/work with the company to ensure the company could continue to make profit. Hard to prove though ☺
But isn’t that the task of lawyers working for a company to protect the “rights” of the company to sell it’s wares? And you are aware that National’s Chris Bishop worked for Phillip Morris?
And the task of a defence lawyer is to protect the rights of their client – no matter how heinous their crime may have been.
Should a rapist be given a fair trial or a paedophile? Of course they must -otherwise our society descends into lawlessness, such as was the case in Rwanda. If the accused were to receive no defence, then the subsequent conviction would have no more merit than the summary justice they metered out to those they slaughtered.
Yes I understand all that and I still find it morally murky for me.
Unfortunately Marty – as G.E. Moore (a late British Philosopher) explained “goodness” is like “redness” – it is a simple concept that cannot be broken down into constituent parts. Either you perceive redness or you don’t.
I can only say that by their actions you shall know them. Does Gloriz act in a good way or a bad way? Having met her and seen the work she has done (not only acting as a defence lawyer) she is a good person – as are all the Green MPs.
I hope that is of some help.
I have no issue with her at all btw. I like having her in parliament.
I agree with your comments about legal process Redlogix.
But Im not sure though if thats the issue here. Isn’t it that Ghahraman and the Greens deliberately fudged her role in the Riwanda war crimes legal process so that the punters would assume that she was on the side of the angels; not the devils, so to speak.
Therein lies her and the Greens problem.
She was perfectly open about what her role was in Rwanda before the Election – because she was a Green candidate – such news was decided not to be published by the MSM – because of “lack of space”. Well I guess it’s much more important to tell us about Bill’s smile
I have no problems with her being on the defense team though why you’d volunteer is beyond me but her profile page on the Green website was, at best, misleading:
“Golriz has lived and worked in Africa, The Hague and Cambodia, putting on trial world leaders for abusing their power.”
Says nothing about defending world leaders either and she herself says “could be clearer”
How those panama papers working out Puckish Rouge? Or the polls buddy? How many more lies do we have to suffer though? Oh wait – you could just revert to type as a racist we all know you are…
Still spinning and lying I see – Oh well can’t be helped, I suppose. It’s what you do.
Look a squirrel!
You’re a joke, but you’re not very funny.
Completely irrelevant. How long is the bio? A few paragraphs?
When I do my three page CV I barely touch the surface of anything on my work history. You’re looking at what I did ina company for 2-4 or even 11 years in a single paragraph. It was like that from when I was 26. By that time I’d had a 10 year work history and several degrees. It had skim paragraphs about time in the army, working as a farm hand, as a barman, a factory machine operator, technical salesman, factory manager, and computer support.
If you want to be be a idiot, then go ahead. Just don’t be surprised if people sum up your CV as “FOOL”
And we have a lawyer in Parliament who worked for a tobacco company….
(tobacco related deaths are around 5 million per year)
http://www.who.int/tobacco/publications/surveillance/fact_sheet_mortality_report.pdf?ua=1
This caught my attention. Not sure why they feel we need more cops but anyway…..
https://www.rt.com/news/411027-new-zealand-police-recruitment-video/
US is seeking the extradition of a British guy (Lauri) for stuff English courts didn’t lay charges over. And apparently …
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/lauri-love-hacker-activist-prison-sentence-extradition-america-aspergers-autism-death-sentence-a8076541.html
Been following this one. Why is any country sending their people to the US with its atrocious record of human rights abuses and shonky legal system?
True.
GROVEL.
State-sponsored adulation of shepherd-murderer moves into overdrive
Tuesday 28 November 2017
RNZ National, 7:24 a.m.
GUYON ESPINER: …. [drily amused] I’ve been taken to task for asking what Harry’s going to wear.
SUSIE FERGUSON: It’ll be a uniform, of course!
GUYON ESPINER: Of course it will. ….. [grovel, grovel…]
three, a.m. show, 7:25 a.m.
DUNCAN GARNER: Royal correspondent Dicky Arbiter, good morning!
DICKY ARBITER: [beaming] The Twitter universe has come alight! …[widens his eyes to indicate his great joy]… Like any young couple in love, they’re not hiding their love for each other!
AMANDA GILLIES: She wore a BEAUTIFUL new coat, designed by Line the Label. What does this mean for dress designers in the U.K.?….[grovel]….
DICKY ARBITER: They’ll look on her as they did Harry’s mother—as a clothes horse rather than a work horse. They do a tremendous amount of good work; let’s focus on what they DO rather than on what they wear, for a change.
DUNCAN GARNER: Yeah, I’m WITH you on this!
DICKY ARBITER: [worshipfully] Harry was a soldier. He was at the sharp end in Afghanistan. …. The couple meeting and they see each other across a crowded room, and that’s IT!… They just clicked, just like a jigsaw puzzle. … Younger people see them as role models. ….
7:52 a.m.
DUNCAN GARNER: Are you interested in the royal engagement? Some of you are. Some of you aren’t at all! That’s next!
…Advertisements (paid ones, not free ones for the Royal Family)….
7:54 a.m.
DUNCAN GARNER: Okay, welcome back. So much feedback for the royal wedding!
MARK RICHARDSON: Prince Harry was happy before this American came along. Well maybe not happy, but he was having a good time.
AMANDA: He wasn’t happy, he’s said that.
DUNCAN GARNER: Our poll question this morning is: “Do you care about the royal engagement between Prince Harry and Mehan Markle?” Well, not everybody does, it seems. Stuey says: “There are lots of unsung heroes in the community. He’s a privileged pillock and welfare beneficiary.”
The others in the studio—Gillies, Richardson, and social presenter Shannon Redstall—titter with pity and amusement.
DUNCAN GARNER: The woooorld of Stuey! I tell you what, Stuey, you can be the producer for the next sixty-threee minutes, and you can decide what’s going to be on the television.
8:02 a.m.
DUNCAN GARNER: Coming up on our panel is Rawdon Christie, broadcaster and royalist. We’ll be talking about Prince Harry, because Stuey hasn’t had enough of that yet…
8:35 a.m.
DUNCAN GARNER: All right, some things we don’t know about Meghan Markle. Everybody’s talking about this right now! …She has two adopted dogs, Bogart and, and….
AMANDA GILLIES: Guy.
DUNCAN GARNER: Yes! You know that? …. Mark, you seem sad.
MARK RICHARDSON: He was my guy. He was my royal guy!
8:42 a.m.
DUNCAN GARNER: We can’t get away from royal news today! It appears the royal couple may be related….
I think you’ll find it was Mihinirangi Forbes.
Thank you, it was Mihi Forbes. That slurping and licking sound coming from Espiner’s microphone somewhat diverted my attention.
The groveling continues….
Jim MORA: What is it about this union that makes people so joyful? Is there hope for the world in it, or what?
…..extended groveling from Mora and his two Panelists continues for three minutes….
The Panel, RNZ National, 4:46 p.m.
Awesome transcribing there Morrissey,
Is that done by electronic voice recognition or done manually by you?
I as a secretary need the program if it is done electronically.
Thanks, cleangreen, for those very kind words. I do it all by ear, usually. This morning I scribbled it down freehand up to 8 o’clock, and the rest I did on my computer as I listened.
My transcriptions are not always spot on, though, and have elicited some controversy here….
Morrissey….did you catch the most deft of wee digs from Mihingarangi Forbes this morning while interviewing a Central Otago Community Leading Light? they were discussing the recent deluge and Mihi pronounced the guy’s name how it is spelled, rather than how he pronounces it. She apologised, of course, and had another go…http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018623287/shovels-out-in-roxburgh-after-flash-floods-tim-cadogan
I am absolutely positively 100% sure she was not tangentially referencing this…
https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/haere-mai-everything-far-ka-pa
I missed that, Rosemary. I think Mihi Forbes is a great journalist.
GROPERS
No. 12: Prince Harry
Groping in England….
Groping and snorting in Las Vegas…
“GROPERS” is presented by GroperWatch, a division of Daisycutter Sports Inc.
No.1 George Herbert Walker Bush; No. 2 Bill O’Reilly; No. 3 Al Franken; No. 4 Robin Brooke; No. 5 Lester Beck; No. 6 Arnold Schwarzenegger; No. 7 Joe Biden; No. 8 Rolf Harris; No. 9 Harold Bloom; No. 10 Sir Jimmy Savile; No. 11 Dr Morgan Fahey
Shit, now using The Sun and Daily Mail as your news sources….
Putting aside their smirking and winking approval of Prince Harry’s appalling behaviour, what is inaccurate in either of those accounts?
Morrissey,
You have great memory recall; – I guess nmy chemical poisoning back in 1992 while last working in Canada hurt my brain as I now have poor memory recall.
Especially if I now get exposed to some perfume’s, diesel exhaust, synthetic rubber smells, and many others.
That is why I love things to be ‘cleangreen’.
So I need to use a tape recording and a “very patient wife of 45 yrs” to transcribe the event. (she is my one love, – once married; – us both)
Thanks for all that information morrissey.
If you’re going to run this series, you really ought to read up a little about “consent” – what it means and how it might be relevant to these posts. Because otherwise you could just end up looking like a grumpy old man who needs to get laid.
Shit Psycho Milt,
Thats a bit harsh on Morrissey,
I find his scribbing of public affairs issues quite refreshing.
Especially since the ‘media’ fail to cover ‘in depth’ public affairs issues today Morrissey is trying to expose them in a transcibed way and if the persons involved dont like their words repeated were are we left then????
Democracy is born from free speech.
His sources include “The Sun” and “The Daily Mail”.
Geat “credible” sources of info.
Interesting how the Left like to lambast the media; until a story is published that suits their way of thinking
Different Morrissey comment, Cleangreen. This is the one about gropers, not the radio transcript.
My issue with it is it makes no case for the sexual activity being non-consensual and yet lumps it in with the activities of people like Rolf Harris and Jimmy Saville. What makes a “groper” is lack of consent, not the fact of touching someone.
sweet, yes correctly stated thanks PM.
Fair comment, Milt, assuming Prince Harry respected the women he groped. I find that highly unlikely. The women seemed to be initially upset but were eventually flustered into smiling and accepting the mistreatment. Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein indulged in similar behaviour, and their victims were socialized into grinning and bearing it, or simply keeping quiet.
Who gives a rat’s ass whether he respected them? Get hold of a dictionary and look up the word “consent” before you go posting about it.
Sure, give that coke-snorting lout the benefit of the doubt if you want. You think someone who kills shepherds from the sanctuary of a helicopter gunship, then soaks up the adulation of the Murdoch press which dubbed him “The Big H”, gropes only willing women at those orgies.
I have a bridge to sell you if you’re interested.
Sure, give that coke-snorting lout the benefit of the doubt if you want.
I hope like fuck no-one ever asks you to sit on a jury.
Addled dotard shows his condescending racist slip.
WASHINGTON—For a year and a half, President Donald Trump has been denounced by Native American leaders for calling Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas.”
He just did it again — at an event honouring Native American war heroes.
Trump held a White House ceremony on Monday to celebrate Navajo “code talkers,” who used their language to transmit secret messages during the Second World War. After complimenting the code talkers, Trump said, “You were here long before any of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”
[…]
The jab at Warren was not the only part of the Monday event that was called offensive. Trump decided to make the speech in front of a portrait of president Andrew Jackson, who is notorious among Native Americans for signing the 1830 Indian Removal Act that forced Natives off of their land and produced thousands of deaths.
Trump also referred to his chief of staff John Kelly as “the chief.” And he suggested he was not personally familiar with the history of the code talkers.
“And I have to say, I said to General Kelly, I said, general, how good — here he is, right there, the chief; he’s the general and the chief — I said, how good were these code talkers?” he said.
Kelly’s response, according to Trump: “Sir, you have no idea. You have no idea how great they were.”
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/11/27/trump-just-called-elizabeth-warren-pocahontas-at-an-event-honouring-native-american-war-heroes.html
Kelly’s response, according to Trump: “Sir, you have no idea. You have no idea how great they were.”
Stated with military precision and accuracy…
He’s like that insect alien inside a human skin suit off men in black. No. Fucking. Idea.
Glyphosate. Another 5 years for it as part of Roundup by the EU on the basis of it possibly being carcinogenic but one can’t be sure till enough people die.
It came up after WW2, where chemicals were used regularly to deadly effect.
Glyphosate was first synthesized in 1950 by Swiss chemist Henry Martin, who worked for the Swiss company Cilag. The work was never published.[18]:1 Stauffer Chemical patented the agent as a chemical chelator in 1964 as it binds and removes minerals such as calcium, magnesium, manganese, copper, and zinc.[19]
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) maintained their current classification of glyphosate as a substance causing serious eye damage and as a substance toxic to aquatic life, but did not find evidence implicating it to be a carcinogen, a mutagen, toxic to reproduction, nor toxic to specific organs.[17]
Monsanto’s last commercially relevant United States patent expired in 2000….
Farmers quickly adopted glyphosate, especially after Monsanto introduced glyphosate-resistant Roundup Ready crops, enabling farmers to kill weeds without killing their crops. In 2007, glyphosate was the most used herbicide in the United States’ agricultural sector and the second-most used in home and garden (2,4-D being the most used)…
In many cities, glyphosate is sprayed along the sidewalks and streets, as well as crevices in between pavement where weeds often grow. However, up to 24% of glyphosate applied to hard surfaces can be run off by water….
In 2015, 89% of corn, 94% of soybeans, and 89% of cotton produced in the United States were genetically modified to be herbicide-tolerant….
Use of glyphosate to clear milkweed along roads and fields may have contributed to a decline in monarch butterfly populations in the Midwestern United States.[172] Along with deforestation and adverse weather conditions,[173] the decrease in milkweed contributed to an 81% decline in monarchs.[174][175] The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a suit in 2015 against the EPA, in which it is argued that the agency ignored warnings about the dangers of glyphosate usage for monarchs.[176]…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
(No heading for honey bees though)- so :
http://www.glyphosate.news/2016-06-27-study-shows-honeybees-are-starving-because-of-roundup.html
and
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/11/03/glyphosate-is-no-bee-killer/
and
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-honeybees-dont-have-a-chance-in-the-midst-of-pesticides_us_58c1ec02e4b0c3276fb7831c
and
https://phys.org/news/2015-10-glyphosate-acetamiprid-toxicity-honey-bees.html
Seems like they are prepared to throw stuff at bees and as long as they keep flying, then the bad individual or combined effects of these chemicals is downplayed.
Then on Radionz we are suffering from leptospirosis which there have been another 93 in NZ for half the year. On and on and our environment and health constantly compromised.
Good research greywarshark;
I will make use of the details and links thank you.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11947570
More ‘blame the victim’ bullshit. Apparently throwing more money at beneficiaries won’t help. Why not? It helps everyone else.
The NZ Initiative a RW thinktank. And lying in heaps.
(Looking at the link that beatie gives above.) They present themselves as cool and rational and informed. They cherry pick the information they disseminate. They quote macro information, quote averages, and then present us with little direct information about individual groups.
With double the income-per-person than what was in 1970, a minimum wage up 50 per cent (inflation adjusted) and better medical care boosting life expectancy and reducing child mortality, you’d think New Zealand would be in its heyday.
It sounds good – double the income of 1970 – how was the inflation adjustment done, what was the base line, apples with apples? Housing has gone up horrendously since 1970, rentals are up, accommodation supplement always trails and the system is its own moral hazard. So that wouldn’t be rosy, but it isn’t mentioned. Instead we hear about child mortality, a nationwide measure, and life expectancy which is a population measure that is of vague concern to someone trying to manage on a pension.
Dr Bryce Wilkinson is just another RW fellow traveller packing a good story against beneficiaries whose opinion and solutions are discounted when pitted against a comfortable professional RW bottom, or even an erect spinal column of bias which is the healthy method of IT work now; (standing, perhaps they could let Peter try it out).
[Peter] has experience in technology and IT but isn’t able to sit in an office chair for longer than three minutes without getting excruciating pain.
“They should do a proper work assessment to see what my experience is and what jobs I can do based on my ability. I’m happy to work from home,” Peter said.
“To me they’re just trying to save costs without any care for the long-term solutions for the beneficiary.”
Wilkinson said a beneficiary’s shortage of money was a symptom rather than a cause of poverty. Instead efforts needed to be made to address drug addiction, alcoholism, mental illness, low skills, poor parenting and a lack of understanding of work habits.
Policies that increase job and income growth must be valued to complement welfare. The report stated the welfare system should “nourish rather than smother self-help”.
“State welfare support is a balancing act. A good system must guard against beneficiaries who could work but do not. This is a waste of human potential and an unwarranted burden on their fellow citizens.”
One notices, one does, the little homily at the end from the stern but just and prudent arbiter of these lives of people who are faulty and unable to take advantage of opportunities that are commonly available, for those who have the ability to exert themselves./sarc
The slimy words of callous, self-centred people are for the purpose of impressing their peer group in society, as to whose fault it is that ‘these people’ are languishing out there. However the dossier that TS has built up over the years gives us examples that ensure we understand the problem in the round, the whole vicious circle that ensures that the welfare system doesn’t work, because the RW don’t want a good, working, society of happy people. Such people are harder to squeeze the last juice out of.
RWNJ pays a woman to pretend to be a victim of sexual assault in an effort to discredit reporting about the sexual assault of women and girls.
Take a bow filth, that really does take the biscuit.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-woman-approached-the-post-with-dramatic–and-false–tale-about-roy-moore-sje-appears-to-be-part-of-undercover-sting-operation/2017/11/27/0c2e335a-cfb6-11e7-9d3a-bcbe2af58c3a_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.e4b342b2a612
Looks like it’s Project Veritas and James O’Keefe again, huh? Such a charming lad.
Thread.
Interesting but there appears to be a patch with two bits that don’t join up.
Don’t know how that gets straightened out.
Its now settling down now,holiday time ,to respect our coalition government,as others chance to talk about democracy,as three political parties say, this is our march to our lands care.
Who in the national party,is going to release the conversations with New Zealand First,who they attempted to negotiate a control deal.
good point.
The 38 page doco that the Nats are trying to obtain from the Coalition has been reduced to 33 pages because someone changed the FONT size!!!
I reckon the only reason the nats want to see it is because they want to know why and how they missed out, they just aren’t handling losing the election very well at all.
I reckon the Nats wouldn’t recognise a real coalition agreement if it hit them 😉
Time the duck,to say,open debate,speakers are open to say,under discrection.However,general debate,is not allowed with notes.
It’s funny (strange) how so many are going through this small item from Golriz sieving it word by word like someone panning for gold.
Yet Key was here for decades and I don’t think anyone went through his past sorting out where his money actually came from. Did anyone actually know how much he made from selling out a day before… from buying a penthouse that was being rezoned …. from not paying his full tax or by selling a day after the withholding period… etc. And it seemed to be his money that was the main attraction, that gave him gravitas. Once he had that it was such a laugh that he was okay, so free to not care about cheeky comments about peeing in the shower and other things like sitting in a cage with a jerk and a microphone.
I think was liked the powerful finance industry that owns NZ’s corporate media.
He was a useful puppet for them
Golriz isn’t.
Is anyone allowed to ask English what the contents of his 200 or so texts to his lady friend were about. I am sure Nz ers want to know. In the interest of transparency and all.
But Floyd those texts (270 odd wasn’t it) were to do with his electorate – sort of like the electronic equivalent of “notes” between him and his local secretary. He didn’t believe they came under the auspices of the OIA. Now, someone else has said that just in the last 24 hrs. Oh that’s right, the Prime Minister. I guess she has taken her cue from the previous Prime Minister.
Many thanks to all the teachers in NZ you have a very important job and I take my hat off to uses Ka pai
Bill,cleaned up.
Lets give im a good kickin then make him shout.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
While we’re talking about Ms Ghahraman, my other problem with her is that she is a refugee who seeks to bring in more refugees. Feels a bit like a Trojan Horse scenario
A.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
What an unpleasant contribution.
Yep horrible bigoted attitude not needed in our country imo.
Like companies who bring in migrants with work experience rather than hire and intern train up local graduates, replacing those who migrate to Oz (for higher wages) with another immigrant.
New Zealand companies just a Trojan horse back door into Oz.
That seems like a separate issue which perhaps will be addressed by tightening immigration rules…
A.
Still no retraction for that shameful comment?
There are around 20 million refugees in the world today.
Every year around 5 million people are forced for one reason or another to flee from their homes and to seek refuge in another country.
NZ accepts 750 refugees per year.
And you make that offensive comment!
🙄
Your “other” problem!? Why fear something that may never happen? It only exists in your mind because you let it exist there and cling on to it. Let it go and be free of your fears.
That sounds like terrible advice
Your choice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upādāna
Do you approve of dirty politics as highlighted by Nicky Hager?
It would appear so…….
I do not.
Do you retract your shameful comment at 30?
No.
Shameful.
But on reflection, I will add that she seems like a very nice person and you probably can’t blame her for giving it a go
A.
Where did you grow up
NZ
Well i can’t avoid the whole bloody country. Anyway you need to be more compassionate and less judgmental imo. Bigotry must be addressed in this country. You can actually hurt people you know.
The Standard is a place for heated debate, as you can well see by reading the posts on pretty much any day. I wouldn’t go round talking like this offline.
A.
I do, because not doing so would be disingenuous.
Why wouldn’t you?
Uh, I changed my mind after seeing this: https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/344871/green-mp-under-scrutiny-for-role-in-rwandan-genocide-trials
I never want to see one of our MPs smiling in a photo alongside a man found guilty of inciting genocide (in an International Criminal Tribunal, and sentenced to 15 years).
We can do without her in NZ. I would like to see her resign as an MP.
A.
No, you didn’t change your mind one bit; you were just a bit slow in making up your mind. It’s funny that so many people seem to go on about changing to improve ‘things’ while in fact they are rooting for status quo and the very last thing they’ll want to do on Earth is to change their (own) minds. I say these people have it back to front big time; reality is not in your head, it is everything but and all outside of your head. Don’t think too long about it as it might change your mind in irrevocable ways.
There is a reason that the Greens almost halved their voter support and lost seats this election…fringe party lunacy, shows what a bastard and undemocratic system MMP is (Winston 2017 may be the straw that broke the MMP back…eventually, and finally). Just as ex National MP Shane Ardern..