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
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..
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
The pressure is mounting on the Government as it finalises its Budget Policy Statement, but yet more predicted revenue ‘goes missing’. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Climate Commission has delivered another funding blow to the National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government’s tax-cutting plans, potentially carving $1.4 billion off the ‘climate ...
The Government now faces the prospect of having to watch another tax raise the price of petrol when, only six days ago, it abolished the Auckland Regional Fuel tax. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon argued that the regional fuel tax imposed costs on lower-income people with less fuel-efficient vehicles and that ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 19 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University A year ago, the AUKUS agreement was formally announced between Australian and UK Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden. The agreement mapped out the “optimal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Helwig, Associate Professor, Electro-Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern Queensland SmartS/Shutterstock Steam locomotives clattering along railway tracks. Paddle steamers churning down the Murray. Dreadnought battleships powered by steam engines. Many of us think the age of steam has ended. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carrie Leonetti, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Victims who experience family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand are treated differently, depending on which part of the justice system they turn to for help. But a new member’s bill ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Tesch, Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, Australian National University In perhaps the least surprising news of the year, Vladimir Putin has triumphed at the Russian ballot box and been enthroned for the fifth time as president. He ...
The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court has stopped a byelection for the Madang Open seat being held until an appeal filed by former MP Bryan Kramer is concluded. Kramer had appealed to the Supreme Court over a National Court decision not to review his application of the Leadership Tribunal decision ...
By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby Despite a “historic” ceasefire agreement in Papua New Guinea between Enga authorities and tribal leaders after months of bitter warfare, a young woman has been found brutally killed near Kaekin village, Wapenamanda. Despite the peace agreement and signing concluded in Port Moresby last Thursday ...
The second season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud is a sadder and slower entry into his canon of true story-telling, leaning heavily on a verdict about the cost of a single work of art. Hollywood heavyweight Ryan Murphy has had a bit of “ick” about him in the last few years. ...
Are you deeply passionate about sharing Māori stories? We’re on the hunt for an experienced writer/editor to lead coverage in our Ātea section.Ātea is a deeply valued section of The Spinoff site, offering Māori perspectives and insights across politics, current affairs and culture. We are thrilled to be looking ...
By Aisha Azeemah in Suva With the lights on one of his sneakers blinking as he ran through the gallery, a little boy looked up at several works of art. One of them was a sculpture of his grandfather: the man who changed how we see the Pacific — Epeli ...
WHAT: Uber drivers are holding a rally outside the Court of Appeal in Wellington tomorrow, as the company begins its appeal against 2022’s Employment Court verdict (in a case taken jointly by FIRST Union and E tū) that four drivers were permanent ...
RNZ Pacific The Fiji Meteorological Service has a heavy rain warning still in place for the whole of the country after a weekend of flooding, although some floodwaters have receded. Flood and flash flood warnings and alerts are also in place, including a warning for all flash flood-prone areas, small ...
Responding to Grant Robertson’s recent admission on a Q+A with Jack Tame that his only regret from his time in office was that he didn’t take on more debt, Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson, Alex Murphy, said: “Grant Robertson has now admitted that he ...
Comment: Re-elected Russian President Vladimir President has declared victory ahead of a fifth term in power, after an election that offered no credible alternative candidates. Following the death of his main opponent Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison last month, thousands of Russians followed Navalny’s plea to cast a symbolic ...
Every week that passes seems to tighten the fiscal noose for Christopher Luxon and co – a noose, moreover, of their own making.“Don’t tell me what you value: show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” This phrase, a favourite of US president Joe Biden’s, resonates ...
Analysis by Geoffrey Miller – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Geoffrey Miller. Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are ...
Auckland may be the largest city in Aotearoa, but it’s the small community-led organisations within it that make the city thrive. The Spinoff spoke to two council-funded organisations who are doing their bit.“Torrent.” That’s the word one 40-year resident of Dundale Avenue used to describe what became of the ...
Commenting on the introduction of the living wage for all employees and contractors at Kāpiti Coast District Council, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “The problem with blanket living-wage policies is that they ...
With the upcoming SailGP event in Ōtautahi/Christchurch looming, there is mounting apprehension regarding the safety of Hector's dolphins, an endangered species unique to New Zealand waters. The event, scheduled to take place in an area frequented by ...
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….
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-08122014/#comment-936838
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….
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-30082011/#comment-369467
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.
https://twitter.com/cspan/status/935240893187198976
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.
https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/935272597520076803
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..