This time he is said to be the go between person whereby the private email sent by Michelle Boag to Judith Collins found its way to the Herald on Sunday.
He is something of a retiring person and does not seem to enjoy public disclosure.
He has a public website, or at least did have one. Remarkably yesterday this website became password protected.
Interestingly the cached version says that “[t]his site has been established as Simon wishes to remove any chance that his anonymity becomes the focus of a campaign.”
It looks like his desire to remove this chance has now dimmed.
Looks like a strategic leak from a certain Minister’s office to try and transfer the blame!
The primary issue IMHO is who leaked the Boag email. My reading of the original Herald article is that it was based solely on the email and the Smith/Pullar correspondence were subsequently leaked. They may have occurred at the same time but the Boag email was the one that caused the immediate damage.
The other burning question is did the Minister’s office also access the file containing the letter and if so on what date?
Reading it further the initial Fisher article in the Herald was published on March 18 and no doubt written before. The letter Pullar is referring to is important but not, I think, the document that caused the controversy to form.
Feel free Petey to point out any comment of mine where I have said something that should not be part of the robust discussion that should occur about this country’s politics.
Typical reaction of a NACT bully. When the pressure comes on, squeal to the Police or run and consult a lawyer.
Nothing to worry about here as far as I can see Mickey (I’m a lawyer too). Defamation wouldn’t stick – too many defences available here 🙂
Crusher is just trying to shut down debate because she is quaking in her boots as her time is up and her leadership aspirations thwarted
You note the total lack of evidence put up by Trevor. It is his normal just invent a story, which for somebizarre reasons the media think has some credibility.
The exchange in the House yesterday was pretty clear cut:
Hon Trevor Mallard: Did she or any of her staff discuss the contents of the Boag email with Simon Lusk?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: No.
Hon Trevor Mallard: Did she or any of her staff discuss the systemic privacy issues that Boag and Pullar raised with her with Simon Lusk?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: No.
Trevor has a fascination with Simon, but the fascination doesn’t extend to accuracy. He stated on numerous occasions last year that Simon Lusk worked for Steven Joyce and on his orders orchestrated the ACT coup.
It is hard to describe how off the planet this is. All I can say is if you do not believe me, just go up to any National MP and ask them “Does Simon Lusk work for Steven Joyce” and around five minutes later you’ll get a response once they have picked themselves up from the floor, and stopped laughing.
Trevor Mallard is to accuracy what Charlie Sheen is to celibacy.
No Petey I used to read Kiwiblog occasionally but I worked out I have better things to do with my time.
And no I have never met Mr Lusk but it is fascinating how often his name pops up. And National does appear to be in utter turmoil right now and the Boag email may mean the end of someone’s Prime Ministerial ambitions if not their Cabinet Career.
Your trying to suggest that investigating this issue is dirty politics but if the allegations are correct and a Minister has breached the rights of privacy of two people for political advantage then I suggest you should be more upset about this.
MS, do you have any evidence at all that Lusk is involved? Or are you just joining the throwing of any old mud to see if something might stick?
If he’s not involved do you care that he’s been dragged into this? Would that just be collateral damage as a part of the game?
This sort of tactic may bite you on the bum sometime. I presume you have a reputation and business interests you’d prefer weren’t used as someone else’s fodder for the fight, just another political pawn and too bad about any damage.
I don’t know Lusk and haven’t had any connection with him at all. I’m just wondering what lengths political operators will go to to pursue their power, and how little they care about who they might trample on along the weay.
Pete, asking questions and making accusations is how you find things out. Do you think a govt is just going to tell everyone what’s going on all by themselves?
I’m sure PG is very well versed in Lusk’s style of politics. The distraction, deflection and reframing of the dirty little tale on a new target for instance, which he is trying to do here to Mallard.
How do you find out facts without first fishing Petey? Maybe National will be kind enough to summarise all of them in a press release for us to save everyone the trouble?
At least you are playing the part of a good little sycophant competently.
Hmmm, one example of transparency that occurs to me is that Peter Dunne could have explicitly explained to the electorate he was in favour of asset sales before the election. Is that the sort of thing you mean, Pete?
No doubt the frenzy will continue today. I suggested yesterday that it’s not nice to see attack politics in full fury, and got some expected criticism.
Do we just shrug our shoulders and say it’s just the way it is? I’m in agreement to an extent with Redlogix:
I actually agree with your basic sentiment PG. This kind of politics doesn’t appeal anymore to me than it does you.
It is one of the least appealing things about our politics to the wider public. Many don’t see wins and losses, just a bunch of tossers.
I don’t agree that it’s just brought about because of National’s faults. It’s due to a longstanding culture of crap politics from across the House. All MPs and parties should play a part in cleaning up their acts. And political blogs could lead the way too, if they chose to ditch the bitter war and find a better way.
A good scandal is very healthy for politics. Like sunlight it’s a disinfectant against the festering slime of political spin and deception. It should make insiders think twice about abusing their power. It is the most honest form of politics there is. Far better then sweeping things under the carpet and pretending that everything is OK.
Scandal are likely when the National backbenchers know how close they came to losing, and know that annoying everyone in society somehow leads to electoral oblivion. This is all about positioning, and yes cleaning house, for the new leader to stand up and show themselves. i.e. going into the next election with a dagger in Keys back, and lollies for the new leadership team members. Ask Goff, he knows all about the theory, and similar practices.
I agree Petey. For instance calling Greens racist and communist supporters when there is no evidence whatsoever is really unappealing politics. And denigrating the Finnish people is pretty crass.
You might have a point if you didn’t distort and rephrase what I said so much. But what you are doing is ignorant or dishonest. That’s not very appealing, is it.
And you must have forgotten already, I denigrated Brownlee’s Finnish crassness.
Pete, as someone pointed out to you yesterday, if the Toxic Right didn’t engage in such nasty tactics (sending in an ex-Nat Party President to meet with Senior ACC managers on behalf of a claimant – come ON! as if the ordinary NZer can do this!) then the Opposition wouldn’t need to engage in such politics would it?
What do you suggest, that the Opposition just sit back and take this kind of insidious, fishy behaviour and let it go in the interests of “playing nice”? How is that good for NZ and ordinary NZers?
Beatifully put Frida. I suggested to Vicky a day ago that she not complain we were hard on PiG, the issue is that his political theories and their practical application hurts real people. Give him some pain back I reckon.
I see that TVNZ have pulled up Hosking over his conflict of interest in Skycity with Hosking declaring he didn’t bother as he only works part time.
Ellis may be gone but the arrogance culture is well entrenched and they trod a well beaten path by using another talkback rantmeister as their current affairs host.
Also the well trod path of UF troll Petey is busy defending his paymasters.
Sorry guys, Have to link whore today. This is huge!
It’s not so much that John Key is a bad liar, he just doesn’t give a fuck about being found out.
He once said that the instruments now causing the destruction of the entire financial world were developed after he left banking. Today I can reveal this to be untrue.
In fact I caught John Key in another whopper! And no I will never suicide myself. LoL
According to the plan, a third party would assume the risk of the debt going bad and in exchange would receive regular payments from the bank — similar to insurance premiums. JP Morgan would then be able to remove the risk from its books and free up its capital reserves. The concept had circulated around the Street for a couple of years, but JP Morgan was the first bank to heavily bet on these new instruments.
I don’t disagree that Bankers Trust may have used early versions of CDS, but their evolution into the highly leveraged, widely speculated on forms which led to the collapse of the MBS market in 07/08, was driven by Blythe Masters and her team at JPM.
Frankly, Key is simply not smart enough nor mathematical enough to have played a big role in the development of innovative new derivatives. That’s what they hire physics quants from Caltech for.
“Frankly, Key is simply not smart enough nor mathematical enough to have played a big role in the development of innovative new derivatives. That’s what they hire physics quants from Caltech for.” – Agreed!
The point is that many people still underestimate Key, and what he does or does not know!
The issue is not when CDS were used but how they came to be in existence and what they were intended for all along and why John Key tells us that the destructive products were developed after he left banking when they clearly were not. What that tells us is that John Key wants to distance himself from banking and what he did in his banking past.
Bankers Trust bank in itself is a fraudulent set up in the first place.
Frankly, Key is simply not smart enough nor mathematical enough to have played a big role in the development of innovative new derivatives.
Key’s a “Yes man” middle manager. His owners tell him what they want him to do and he does it. He doesn’t need to think about what he’s doing, merely organising getting it done.
John Key is not a middle manager. He was head of Merrill Lynch’s department for Bonds and Derivatives Europe and Foreign Exchange Globally in the most important period in banking since they caused the Great depression but he does know on which side his bread is buttered and wants to play with the big boys.
He was head of Merrill Lynch’s department for Bonds and Derivatives Europe and Foreign Exchange Globally…
Yep, and that makes him a middle manager as there will be people above him although I was thinking more along the lines of the mindset – he does what he’s told using the people he’s in charge of.
I disagree with Key’s classification as a “middle manager”, if only for the fact it downplays too much his position and repute in the organisation.
In the mafia set up Key was clearly more than a ‘soldier’. He’d also done his time as a ‘lieutenant’. Looks to me like he was definitely a ‘capo’ (captain). A relatively senior one at that. Does that mean he was in the topmost echelon? Probably not quite. He was a divisional head, but not on the chief executive team back at Head Office (but surely riding a fast track there, and no doubt was on a first name basis with all of them).
So although technically correct, labelling Key a “middle manager” doesn’t describe the nuances of how far up the ladder he really was.
BTW he probably took up the job as NZ PM with the explicit backing and pre-approval of the senior team at Merill Lynch.
Finally relented and gave in to my crossword addiction and bought a New Zealand Fox News Herald yesterday for the first time in months . . . things must be tight over there: how long has the business section been folded into Section B ?
Taupo is super volcano. So no worries there, if we release pressure by fracking sub-strata rock and open fissures for high pressure water and gas to depressurize in surrounding containment strata. A small earthquake effect caused by an explosion or two would not block lava and start a lava bottleneck. No. We’re not like the moratorium on the America plains where the most dangerous hazard is a cowboy company pumping nasty chemicals into ancient aquifers, we have volcanos, have earthquakes and a legislator that knows all when it knows nothing.
There is a wonderful scene in Frackingland (a doco) in which the fracking company declare their practices to be safe. The anti fracking party fronts up at the hearing with water from a fracked well and challenges the fracking advocate to drink it..of course he wont.
That in a nutshell is the problem: industry can mobilise talking heads and never be forced to taste the bitter fruit of their deeds. We must make them do so.
Farmers are going to find, maybe in a few years, maybe over decades time, hydrocarbons finding their way into water sources. I mean oil and gas were ‘trapped’ by the strata above them, when we break them and do not pump all the resource out, that remaining resource will rise to the water table. So what fracking does, is accelerate the pollution of the world, from the plastic ocean to the deepest well, our hippy boomer generation has destroyed the world for future generations.
The (Dis)honourable Peter Dunne aka ‘the hair’ betrays students …yet another illustration of the fact that UF doesn’t give a f**k about the people or future of New Zealand.
Looks as if the flood gates are opening even further, and it’s not not a good time to be on board the national boat with a captain that’s on holiday a first mate, who upsets the foreigners along with a crew that can’t divert or plug leaks.
An excellent decision in Australia regarding urine sampling for drug use. In summary, it has been decided that urine tests are not precise enough to determine exactly when dope has been smoked, so can’t be relied on to prove a worker is under the influence while at work.
”A person may be found to have breached the policy even though their actions were taken in their own time and in no way affect their capacity to do their job safely,” he said. Because of this, where oral fluid testing was available, he said, the use of urine testing by the applicant would be ”unjust and unreasonable”.
I thought I was reasonably IT literate, but was surprised today to hear that Ms Pullar was able to check her email of months previously to see who had opened her file, and at what time. Can someone explain.
There is some discussion on this in the comments on the Unaswered questions post. Sorry, I can’t seem to link to the particular ones but you might like to look at that post and its comments.
Since we are in the season to call for inquiries, I would like to suggest that an inquiry be held in the impartiality of Herr Doktor Lockwood Smith.
In spite of the evidence that Collins spoke about the ACC emails on Radio Live this morning, Lockwood ruled that Collins could hide behind her refusal to answer questions on the grounds that it was subject to Privacy Commissioner investigation and was therefore not in the public interest.
The inquiry was announced yesterday (NZHerald, Fairfax,) and Lockwood has the effrontery to say it was not “outrageous” the Collins was wanted to hide behind the investigation.
Does that make Radio Live a higher forum than the House of Parliament for the minister to address her accountability. That in itself is outrageous!
China successfully used the information to hack into Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), a top U.S. defense contractor. It is thought that China’s remarkable progress in stealth fighter technology has been fueled by stolen U.S. Department of Defense Secrets..
Whether the Chinese government is perpetrating these attacks first hand, sponsoring third parties to conduct them, or merely condoning corporate interests to conduct them is almost as hazy as the sketchy financial ties the Chinese government holds to many of its private sector business (to be fair such allegations have increasingly been raised about the U.S. gov’t).
POAL have stuffed up, big time. The Employment Court has given its reasons for the granting of the injunctions earlier this week and they are scathing of the Port’s strategy. The court finds that there is a ‘seriously arguable case’ that POAL has undermined the bargaining since the beginning.
MUNZ are pretty restrained in their press release, but Gibson, Pearson and their overpaid advisors will be spewing about now:
The Maritime Union of New Zealand welcomes the Employment Courts written reasons, released today, for Tuesday’s granting of an injunction stopping the Ports of Auckland contracting out.
The Court found there is a ‘seriously arguable case’ that the Ports of Auckland has breached the Employment Relations Act and Undermined the Collective Bargaining. It also found it likely other aspects of the Act have been breached.
It was on this basis that the court issued the injunction.
“This decision reiterates the fact that the Port Board is not able to manage the port in the manner required by law,” said Maritime Union President Garry Parsloe.
“The crime here is the workers at the port have suffered five weeks without pay because their legal right to bargain was undermined. The businesses and people of Auckland have suffered severe losses and the Council has lost money through both lost revenue and the huge costs the port company has incurred attempting to implement these ill thought out plans.”
“It is time for this to stop now. We are ready to negotiate a collective agreement. We want to return to work and we want this attack on our workforce to stop.”
No no. It’s safe to assume that POAL has the bestest lawyers ever spawned, and that they have a bulklet proof case that has followed the letter of the law. This activist judge just doesn’t realise that MUNZ has overplayed its hand and totally lost the PR battle.
Not our dear leader! He who makes the sun to shine and the rain to come in it’s season.
If he was then it wasn’t his fault…
– “I was not at the meeting”
– “I’ve had no reports on that”
– “This matter is before….the police, the courts, the commissioner”
– “I have no recollection of…..knowing Ms. Pullar, opposing the Springbok Tour, speculating on my own country’s currency or selling crap financial products…Oh, I was not in Berlin in ’45”
That had a brief mention on TV 3 News. The link might have been several years ago. However you would think that Mr Key might have declared an interest if indeed there was more than casual conversations.
Indeed,the Auckland Wharfies have recieved due vindication from the Employment Court,unfortunately we could place a large sum of our scarce coinage upon the Auckland ports management paying scant regard to the decision from the Employment Court and carrying right on planning to contract out the employment of the unionized Wharfies of Auckland and expect to win the bet,
This dispute on a political level is a perfect picture of the huge disconnect between the average working head and the political leadership,both locally and nationally,
We will ask the question that has already been asked of Labour leader David Shearer as this attempt to circumvent the rights of workers to collectively bargain with their employers reached such an ugly empasse,
The real question tho, and a more pertinent one in light of the Employment Courts decision,has to ask of Auckland Mayor Len Brown,(a supposed lefty0,is He so powerless as to have been forced to sit idly by as the workers in the city He presides over have been done over by a company owned by that city,or did He just chose to park up on the couch and let it happen,
Within that Ports of Auckland industrial dispute lies the disconnect,the widening chasm,between the shop floor left,the cloth cap so to speak and the Beamer riding hierarchy of the Lefts Leadership,such Leaders should look to themselves and fix it fast or move on,(and we aint talking here about having the posteriors carted about in the Beamers,a rides a ride)…
Makes a mockery out of “If you can’t do the time , don’t do the crime”
“Sir” Doug Graham gets 300 hours community work, $100k fine in Lombard sentencing.Bill Jefferies , ex Minister of Justice received the same fine & 400 hours of community work[he showed no remorse!].
Lawrie Bryant & Michael Reeves , co-defendants received similar sentences.
Lombard Finance went into receivership in April 2008, owing approximately $127 million to about 4,400 investors.
Lets do the sums : $127,000,000 less $400,000 = $126,600,000
divided by 1400 hours [combined sentence] = $90,428/hour
Solid Energy:
One of the proposed SOE’s up for “sale’.
The SOE has rights to huge deposits of Lignite/Brown Coal in Southland which they have been planning to exploit and covert to Diesel .
Interesting article below brings into focus the real cost to you & me of the ‘sale’ & this plan to make synfuel. Under National’s ETS [ one of the first things they passed under urgency in 2009] the “Carbon Tax” due on such a venture would be subsidised to the tune of $275 Million /year by the government/taxpayers!!!!!!!!
An unfortunate coincidence??
Not likely , wake up folks we are being systematically and cynically rorted by smiling John and his thieving cohorts.
Clearly there’s a lot more riding on the inquiry than just the way National hands out permits like lollies and how the oil and gas industry goes about fracking New Zealand. There’s the question of safety and whether fracking should be occurring at all?
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
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Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
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So who is Simon Lusk?
He came to attention last year because he seemed to be a go to person for potential national Party MPs wanting to sow up candidacy campaigns. He was also thought to have had a major involvement in National’s hostile takeover of the ACT party.
This time he is said to be the go between person whereby the private email sent by Michelle Boag to Judith Collins found its way to the Herald on Sunday.
He is something of a retiring person and does not seem to enjoy public disclosure.
He has a public website, or at least did have one. Remarkably yesterday this website became password protected.
But thanks to the miracle that is Google cache the world can still enjoy the site that is simonlusk.com.
Interestingly the cached version says that “[t]his site has been established as Simon wishes to remove any chance that his anonymity becomes the focus of a campaign.”
It looks like his desire to remove this chance has now dimmed.
So, if it was the ACC case worker who leaked the letter to the Herald, would Lusk be likely to have been involved in that?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6655745/ACC-worker-re-viewed-leaked-Smith-letter
Thanks Carol
Looks like a strategic leak from a certain Minister’s office to try and transfer the blame!
The primary issue IMHO is who leaked the Boag email. My reading of the original Herald article is that it was based solely on the email and the Smith/Pullar correspondence were subsequently leaked. They may have occurred at the same time but the Boag email was the one that caused the immediate damage.
The other burning question is did the Minister’s office also access the file containing the letter and if so on what date?
Reading it further the initial Fisher article in the Herald was published on March 18 and no doubt written before. The letter Pullar is referring to is important but not, I think, the document that caused the controversy to form.
@Hilary_Barry
“Justice Minister Judith Collins says she’s taking defamation proceedings against two Labour MP’s and a news organisation. ”
No word of any lawyer being a target there.
Not sure what you are trying to say there Pete, but how does a defamation suit fit into your scheme.
A good thing, or a bad thing?
Or is it contextual?
If contextual, what do you think about this particular case.
Be as detailed as you like.
Feel free Petey to point out any comment of mine where I have said something that should not be part of the robust discussion that should occur about this country’s politics.
Go on, I dare you.
You seem to have missed these questions:
MS, do you have any evidence at all that Lusk is involved? Or are you just joining the throwing of any old mud to see if something might stick?
Go on, answer, I dare you.
PG using “evidence” as an excuse to shut down discussion and investigation. Useless.
Petey you really are a crack up.
You seem to have answered indirectly.
Typical reaction of a NACT bully. When the pressure comes on, squeal to the Police or run and consult a lawyer.
Nothing to worry about here as far as I can see Mickey (I’m a lawyer too). Defamation wouldn’t stick – too many defences available here 🙂
Crusher is just trying to shut down debate because she is quaking in her boots as her time is up and her leadership aspirations thwarted
Thanks, Micky. Successful spin though if it blurs the distinction between the 2 emails.
I presume you’ve read this MS?
Do you have a Lusk lust too?
No Petey I used to read Kiwiblog occasionally but I worked out I have better things to do with my time.
And no I have never met Mr Lusk but it is fascinating how often his name pops up. And National does appear to be in utter turmoil right now and the Boag email may mean the end of someone’s Prime Ministerial ambitions if not their Cabinet Career.
Your trying to suggest that investigating this issue is dirty politics but if the allegations are correct and a Minister has breached the rights of privacy of two people for political advantage then I suggest you should be more upset about this.
Time will tell …
MS, do you have any evidence at all that Lusk is involved? Or are you just joining the throwing of any old mud to see if something might stick?
If he’s not involved do you care that he’s been dragged into this? Would that just be collateral damage as a part of the game?
This sort of tactic may bite you on the bum sometime. I presume you have a reputation and business interests you’d prefer weren’t used as someone else’s fodder for the fight, just another political pawn and too bad about any damage.
I don’t know Lusk and haven’t had any connection with him at all. I’m just wondering what lengths political operators will go to to pursue their power, and how little they care about who they might trample on along the weay.
Pete, asking questions and making accusations is how you find things out. Do you think a govt is just going to tell everyone what’s going on all by themselves?
Are you aware of what type of politics lusk specialises in?
\
http://www.amazon.com/Going-Dirty-The-Negative-Campaigning/dp/0742545008
He wrote a book on it. He sells his sevices.
Would he be one of the heavies you think should get the heave-ho?
I’m sure PG is very well versed in Lusk’s style of politics. The distraction, deflection and reframing of the dirty little tale on a new target for instance, which he is trying to do here to Mallard.
asking questions and making accusations is how you find things out.
Questions and accusations based on facts – ok.
But if accusations are fishing without any facts, just on the hope of getting a hit, then that’s very poor politics. Don’t you think?
How do you find out facts without first fishing Petey? Maybe National will be kind enough to summarise all of them in a press release for us to save everyone the trouble?
At least you are playing the part of a good little sycophant competently.
How do you find out facts without first fishing Petey?
Better government and party transparency.
And that would be helped by ditching the wild trample on many to try and hit a few approach.
Should we just wait quietly for this better transparency?
And what exactly do you mean? It’s pretty vague.
Tie it to this case.
Who should be doing what?
Hmmm, one example of transparency that occurs to me is that Peter Dunne could have explicitly explained to the electorate he was in favour of asset sales before the election. Is that the sort of thing you mean, Pete?
Perhaps Ms Collins should have used a placard with the letters NO printed on it, like Winston did once.
No doubt the frenzy will continue today. I suggested yesterday that it’s not nice to see attack politics in full fury, and got some expected criticism.
Do we just shrug our shoulders and say it’s just the way it is? I’m in agreement to an extent with Redlogix:
It is one of the least appealing things about our politics to the wider public. Many don’t see wins and losses, just a bunch of tossers.
I don’t agree that it’s just brought about because of National’s faults. It’s due to a longstanding culture of crap politics from across the House. All MPs and parties should play a part in cleaning up their acts. And political blogs could lead the way too, if they chose to ditch the bitter war and find a better way.
Holding to account, or heaves of destruction?
A good scandal is very healthy for politics. Like sunlight it’s a disinfectant against the festering slime of political spin and deception. It should make insiders think twice about abusing their power. It is the most honest form of politics there is. Far better then sweeping things under the carpet and pretending that everything is OK.
Scandal are likely when the National backbenchers know how close they came to losing, and know that annoying everyone in society somehow leads to electoral oblivion. This is all about positioning, and yes cleaning house, for the new leader to stand up and show themselves. i.e. going into the next election with a dagger in Keys back, and lollies for the new leadership team members. Ask Goff, he knows all about the theory, and similar practices.
I agree Petey. For instance calling Greens racist and communist supporters when there is no evidence whatsoever is really unappealing politics. And denigrating the Finnish people is pretty crass.
Oh wait, was that you who did that?
What is that word starting with “h”?
You might have a point if you didn’t distort and rephrase what I said so much. But what you are doing is ignorant or dishonest. That’s not very appealing, is it.
And you must have forgotten already, I denigrated Brownlee’s Finnish crassness.
What is that word starting with “h”?
Honesty? Something you seem to struggle with.
Oh is that a whore in the whore house protesting her obvious virginity, Mr George.
Pete, how are the ‘political heavies’ to be ‘given the heave ho’?
How, exactly, are you asking that they be held to account and given the ‘heave ho’ so that you can claim democracy back?
Does that not require that some political actors point out that their behaviour is unacceptable, and that they should be held to account for it?
Is PG still trying to position himself as being the most fair minded and civil of them all?
Dude we’ve already seen you with your pants down around your ankles, why keep trying to pretend that we haven’t?
Pete, as someone pointed out to you yesterday, if the Toxic Right didn’t engage in such nasty tactics (sending in an ex-Nat Party President to meet with Senior ACC managers on behalf of a claimant – come ON! as if the ordinary NZer can do this!) then the Opposition wouldn’t need to engage in such politics would it?
What do you suggest, that the Opposition just sit back and take this kind of insidious, fishy behaviour and let it go in the interests of “playing nice”? How is that good for NZ and ordinary NZers?
Get real, man. You live in a fantasy world.
Beatifully put Frida. I suggested to Vicky a day ago that she not complain we were hard on PiG, the issue is that his political theories and their practical application hurts real people. Give him some pain back I reckon.
Thanks Bored
The beancounters have been maintaining their perfect record…
Treasury ‘asleep at the wheel’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10795088
Incompetent prats.
I see that TVNZ have pulled up Hosking over his conflict of interest in Skycity with Hosking declaring he didn’t bother as he only works part time.
Ellis may be gone but the arrogance culture is well entrenched and they trod a well beaten path by using another talkback rantmeister as their current affairs host.
Also the well trod path of UF troll Petey is busy defending his paymasters.
Sorry guys, Have to link whore today. This is huge!
It’s not so much that John Key is a bad liar, he just doesn’t give a fuck about being found out.
He once said that the instruments now causing the destruction of the entire financial world were developed after he left banking. Today I can reveal this to be untrue.
In fact I caught John Key in another whopper! And no I will never suicide myself. LoL
http://aotearoaawiderperspective.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/coming-later-today-john-key-more-lies-bankers-trust-and-credit-default-swaps-or-did-john-key-help-birth-the-instrument-of-financial-mass-destruction/
I’m pretty sure that Blythe Masters, a young star at JPM, was most fully responsible for the creation and initial use of credit default swaps.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/20/wallstreet.banking
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/249633/Who-is-John-Key
“Forms of credit default swaps had been in existence from at least the early 1990s,[48] with early trades carried out by Bankers Trust in 1991”
http://wallstreetandtech.com/top-innovators/2011/Blythe-Masters
I don’t disagree that Bankers Trust may have used early versions of CDS, but their evolution into the highly leveraged, widely speculated on forms which led to the collapse of the MBS market in 07/08, was driven by Blythe Masters and her team at JPM.
Frankly, Key is simply not smart enough nor mathematical enough to have played a big role in the development of innovative new derivatives. That’s what they hire physics quants from Caltech for.
“Frankly, Key is simply not smart enough nor mathematical enough to have played a big role in the development of innovative new derivatives. That’s what they hire physics quants from Caltech for.” – Agreed!
The point is that many people still underestimate Key, and what he does or does not know!
He knows!
CV,
The issue is not when CDS were used but how they came to be in existence and what they were intended for all along and why John Key tells us that the destructive products were developed after he left banking when they clearly were not. What that tells us is that John Key wants to distance himself from banking and what he did in his banking past.
Bankers Trust bank in itself is a fraudulent set up in the first place.
Key’s a “Yes man” middle manager. His owners tell him what they want him to do and he does it. He doesn’t need to think about what he’s doing, merely organising getting it done.
John Key is not a middle manager. He was head of Merrill Lynch’s department for Bonds and Derivatives Europe and Foreign Exchange Globally in the most important period in banking since they caused the Great depression but he does know on which side his bread is buttered and wants to play with the big boys.
Here is part 1 of my series on John Key, Credit default swaps and more lies.
Yep, and that makes him a middle manager as there will be people above him although I was thinking more along the lines of the mindset – he does what he’s told using the people he’s in charge of.
I disagree with Key’s classification as a “middle manager”, if only for the fact it downplays too much his position and repute in the organisation.
In the mafia set up Key was clearly more than a ‘soldier’. He’d also done his time as a ‘lieutenant’. Looks to me like he was definitely a ‘capo’ (captain). A relatively senior one at that. Does that mean he was in the topmost echelon? Probably not quite. He was a divisional head, but not on the chief executive team back at Head Office (but surely riding a fast track there, and no doubt was on a first name basis with all of them).
So although technically correct, labelling Key a “middle manager” doesn’t describe the nuances of how far up the ladder he really was.
BTW he probably took up the job as NZ PM with the explicit backing and pre-approval of the senior team at Merill Lynch.
Finally relented and gave in to my crossword addiction and bought a New Zealand Fox News Herald yesterday for the first time in months . . . things must be tight over there: how long has the business section been folded into Section B ?
I can’t really remember but I reckon it has been like that for the last 5 years or so?
Why’d you buy one?
It’s just not the same though. You need to be able to scribble in the margins and draw little pictures and put your anagrams in circles and such.
But mostly you need to be able to casually leave it lying around on the smoko table when you’ve finished it 😀
😆
Taupo is super volcano. So no worries there, if we release pressure by fracking sub-strata rock and open fissures for high pressure water and gas to depressurize in surrounding containment strata. A small earthquake effect caused by an explosion or two would not block lava and start a lava bottleneck. No. We’re not like the moratorium on the America plains where the most dangerous hazard is a cowboy company pumping nasty chemicals into ancient aquifers, we have volcanos, have earthquakes and a legislator that knows all when it knows nothing.
There is a wonderful scene in Frackingland (a doco) in which the fracking company declare their practices to be safe. The anti fracking party fronts up at the hearing with water from a fracked well and challenges the fracking advocate to drink it..of course he wont.
That in a nutshell is the problem: industry can mobilise talking heads and never be forced to taste the bitter fruit of their deeds. We must make them do so.
Farmers are going to find, maybe in a few years, maybe over decades time, hydrocarbons finding their way into water sources. I mean oil and gas were ‘trapped’ by the strata above them, when we break them and do not pump all the resource out, that remaining resource will rise to the water table. So what fracking does, is accelerate the pollution of the world, from the plastic ocean to the deepest well, our hippy boomer generation has destroyed the world for future generations.
The (Dis)honourable Peter Dunne aka ‘the hair’ betrays students …yet another illustration of the fact that UF doesn’t give a f**k about the people or future of New Zealand.
Stealth claims fly during student loan debate
It would seem that the breaks are being applied to the governments asset sales program. courtesy of the Waitangi Tribunal.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/6655601/Water-ownership-hearing-threatens-asset-sales
Looks as if the flood gates are opening even further, and it’s not not a good time to be on board the national boat with a captain that’s on holiday a first mate, who upsets the foreigners along with a crew that can’t divert or plug leaks.
An excellent decision in Australia regarding urine sampling for drug use. In summary, it has been decided that urine tests are not precise enough to determine exactly when dope has been smoked, so can’t be relied on to prove a worker is under the influence while at work.
”A person may be found to have breached the policy even though their actions were taken in their own time and in no way affect their capacity to do their job safely,” he said. Because of this, where oral fluid testing was available, he said, the use of urine testing by the applicant would be ”unjust and unreasonable”.
I thought I was reasonably IT literate, but was surprised today to hear that Ms Pullar was able to check her email of months previously to see who had opened her file, and at what time. Can someone explain.
Hi dans
There is some discussion on this in the comments on the Unaswered questions post. Sorry, I can’t seem to link to the particular ones but you might like to look at that post and its comments.
Cheers
Since we are in the season to call for inquiries, I would like to suggest that an inquiry be held in the impartiality of Herr Doktor Lockwood Smith.
In spite of the evidence that Collins spoke about the ACC emails on Radio Live this morning, Lockwood ruled that Collins could hide behind her refusal to answer questions on the grounds that it was subject to Privacy Commissioner investigation and was therefore not in the public interest.
The inquiry was announced yesterday (NZHerald, Fairfax,) and Lockwood has the effrontery to say it was not “outrageous” the Collins was wanted to hide behind the investigation.
Does that make Radio Live a higher forum than the House of Parliament for the minister to address her accountability. That in itself is outrageous!
China steals details of widely used encryption standard, accused of massive theft from US companies and govt organisations
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=24328
POAL have stuffed up, big time. The Employment Court has given its reasons for the granting of the injunctions earlier this week and they are scathing of the Port’s strategy. The court finds that there is a ‘seriously arguable case’ that POAL has undermined the bargaining since the beginning.
MUNZ are pretty restrained in their press release, but Gibson, Pearson and their overpaid advisors will be spewing about now:
The Maritime Union of New Zealand welcomes the Employment Courts written reasons, released today, for Tuesday’s granting of an injunction stopping the Ports of Auckland contracting out.
The Court found there is a ‘seriously arguable case’ that the Ports of Auckland has breached the Employment Relations Act and Undermined the Collective Bargaining. It also found it likely other aspects of the Act have been breached.
It was on this basis that the court issued the injunction.
“This decision reiterates the fact that the Port Board is not able to manage the port in the manner required by law,” said Maritime Union President Garry Parsloe.
“The crime here is the workers at the port have suffered five weeks without pay because their legal right to bargain was undermined. The businesses and people of Auckland have suffered severe losses and the Council has lost money through both lost revenue and the huge costs the port company has incurred attempting to implement these ill thought out plans.”
“It is time for this to stop now. We are ready to negotiate a collective agreement. We want to return to work and we want this attack on our workforce to stop.”
No no. It’s safe to assume that POAL has the bestest lawyers ever spawned, and that they have a bulklet proof case that has followed the letter of the law. This activist judge just doesn’t realise that MUNZ has overplayed its hand and totally lost the PR battle.
Anyone got a link to that story where Key was explaining the extent of his own relationship with Pullar?
From memory he was saying she was around Nat party circles, that he’d met her, and that she’d mentioned her problems with acc.
Hope he wasn’t being less than transparent.
http://www.facebook.com/closeup
Not our dear leader! He who makes the sun to shine and the rain to come in it’s season.
If he was then it wasn’t his fault…
– “I was not at the meeting”
– “I’ve had no reports on that”
– “This matter is before….the police, the courts, the commissioner”
– “I have no recollection of…..knowing Ms. Pullar, opposing the Springbok Tour, speculating on my own country’s currency or selling crap financial products…Oh, I was not in Berlin in ’45”
That had a brief mention on TV 3 News. The link might have been several years ago. However you would think that Mr Key might have declared an interest if indeed there was more than casual conversations.
Indeed,the Auckland Wharfies have recieved due vindication from the Employment Court,unfortunately we could place a large sum of our scarce coinage upon the Auckland ports management paying scant regard to the decision from the Employment Court and carrying right on planning to contract out the employment of the unionized Wharfies of Auckland and expect to win the bet,
This dispute on a political level is a perfect picture of the huge disconnect between the average working head and the political leadership,both locally and nationally,
We will ask the question that has already been asked of Labour leader David Shearer as this attempt to circumvent the rights of workers to collectively bargain with their employers reached such an ugly empasse,
The real question tho, and a more pertinent one in light of the Employment Courts decision,has to ask of Auckland Mayor Len Brown,(a supposed lefty0,is He so powerless as to have been forced to sit idly by as the workers in the city He presides over have been done over by a company owned by that city,or did He just chose to park up on the couch and let it happen,
Within that Ports of Auckland industrial dispute lies the disconnect,the widening chasm,between the shop floor left,the cloth cap so to speak and the Beamer riding hierarchy of the Lefts Leadership,such Leaders should look to themselves and fix it fast or move on,(and we aint talking here about having the posteriors carted about in the Beamers,a rides a ride)…
Makes a mockery out of “If you can’t do the time , don’t do the crime”
“Sir” Doug Graham gets 300 hours community work, $100k fine in Lombard sentencing.Bill Jefferies , ex Minister of Justice received the same fine & 400 hours of community work[he showed no remorse!].
Lawrie Bryant & Michael Reeves , co-defendants received similar sentences.
Lombard Finance went into receivership in April 2008, owing approximately $127 million to about 4,400 investors.
Lets do the sums : $127,000,000 less $400,000 = $126,600,000
divided by 1400 hours [combined sentence] = $90,428/hour
Can’t see this discouraging the next round of Corporate thieves.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1203/S01057/doug-graham-gets-300-hrs-community-work-100k-lombard-fine.htm
In the UK you could steal $20 worth of booze during a riot and get prison time!!!
+1
Solid Energy:
One of the proposed SOE’s up for “sale’.
The SOE has rights to huge deposits of Lignite/Brown Coal in Southland which they have been planning to exploit and covert to Diesel .
Interesting article below brings into focus the real cost to you & me of the ‘sale’ & this plan to make synfuel. Under National’s ETS [ one of the first things they passed under urgency in 2009] the “Carbon Tax” due on such a venture would be subsidised to the tune of $275 Million /year by the government/taxpayers!!!!!!!!
An unfortunate coincidence??
Not likely , wake up folks we are being systematically and cynically rorted by smiling John and his thieving cohorts.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1012/S00279/solid-energys-lignite-should-remain-in-the-ground-pce.htm
Those energy reserves must stay 100% NZ owned and controlled.
Phil Heatley – Asshole of the Week
Clearly there’s a lot more riding on the inquiry than just the way National hands out permits like lollies and how the oil and gas industry goes about fracking New Zealand. There’s the question of safety and whether fracking should be occurring at all?