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?
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Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
Chris Trotter writes – The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
Mariupol, on the Azov Sea coast, was one of the first cities to suffer almost complete destruction after the start of the Ukraine War started in late February 2022. We remember the scenes of absolute destruction of the houses and city structures. The deaths of innocent civilians – many of ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – Ten years ago, I wrote the following in a Listener column: Every year around one in five new-born babies will be reliant on their caregivers benefit by Christmas. This pattern has persisted from at least 1993. For Maori the number jumps to over one in three. ...
Climate change is expected to generate more and more extreme events, delivering a sort of structural shock to inflation that central banks will have to react to as if they were short-term cyclical issues. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s ...
It’s a simple deal. We pay taxes in order to finance the social services we want and need. The carnage now occurring across the public sector though, is breaking that contract. Over 3,000 jobs have been lost so far. Many are in crucial areas like Education where the impact of ...
Hi,A friend had their 40th over the weekend and decided to theme it after Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion icon Susie Greene. Captured in my tiny kitchen before I left the house, I ending up evoking a mix of old lesbian and Hillary Clinton — both unintentional.Me vs Hillary ClintonIf you’re ...
This is a re-post from Andrew Dessler at the Climate Brink blogIn 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something ...
The schools are on holiday and the sun is shining in the seaside village and all day long I have been seeing bunches of bikes; Mums, Dads, teens and toddlers chattering, laughing, happy, having a bloody great time together. Cheers, AT, for the bits of lane you’ve added lately around the ...
Today in our National-led authoritarian nightmare: Shane Jones thinks Ministers should be above the law: New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is accusing the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping its mandate by subpoenaing a minister for its urgent hearing on the Oranga Tamariki claim. The tribunal is looking into the ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. ...
Citizen Science writes – Last week saw two significant developments in the debate over the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people – the release in Britain of the final report of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into gender healthcare, and here in New Zealand, the news that the ...
One night while sleeping in my bed I had a beautiful dreamThat all the people of the world got together on the same wavelengthAnd began helping one anotherNow in this dream, universal love was the theme of the dayPeace and understanding and it happened this wayAfter such an eventful day ...
This is a guest post by Oscar Simms who is a housing activist, volunteer for the Coalition for More Homes, and was the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central at the last election. ...
Turning what Labour called the “holiday highway” into a four-lane expressway from Auckland to Whangarei could bring at least an economic benefit of nearly two billion a year for Northland each year. And it could help bring an end to poverty in one of New Zealand’s most deprived regions. The ...
Tonight’s six-stack includes: launching his substack with a bunch of his previous documentaries, including this 1992 interview with Dame Whina Cooper. and here crew give climate activists plenty to do, including this call to submit against the Fast Track Approvals bill. writes brilliantly here on his substack ...
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 ...
You're in the mall when you hear it: some kind of popping sound in the distance, kids with fireworks, maybe. But then a moment of eerie stillness is followed by more of the fireworks sound and there’s also screaming and shrieking and now here come people running for their lives.Does ...
Karl du Fresne writes – There’s a crisis in the news media and the media are blaming it on everyone except themselves. Culpability is being deflected elsewhere – mainly to the hapless Minister of Communications, Melissa Lee, and the big social media platforms that are accused of hoovering ...
I don’t normally send out two newsletters in a day but I figured I’d say something about… the news. If two newsletters is a bit much then maybe just skip one, I don’t want to overload people. Alternatively if you’d be interested in sometimes receiving multiple, smaller updates from me, ...
Buzz from the Beehive David Seymour and Winston Peters today signalled that at least two ministers of the Crown might be in Wellington today. Seymour (as Associate Minister of Education) announced the removal of more red tape, this time to make it easier for new early learning services to be ...
Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. Our political system is suffering from the ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel. “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says. "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board. “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti. “I have asked her to ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States. “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
The Fast-track Bill, if passed, would allow three Ministers, unchallenged and unchecked, to approve the immediate extraction and exhaustion of one-off resources. ...
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 iamharin/Shutterstock For many people, the term “bulk billed” refers to a GP visit they don’t have to pay ...
Emmas Hislop, Sidnam and Wehipeihana discuss what’s in a name. Emma Sidnam: Hello Emmas! Thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me. My first question for you is related to what’s been on my mind for a while. It’s very important. You see we’ve recently had some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Sievers, Research Fellow, Global Wetlands Project, Australia Rivers Institute, Griffith University Chris Brown Humans love the coast. But we love it to death, so much so we’ve destroyed valuable coastal habitat – in the case of some types of habitat, ...
Josh Thomson on the 80s milk ad jingle he can’t stop singing, the beauty of The Simpsons, why Jersey Shore is as good as Shakespeare and more. For someone who spends a lot of time on our screens, popping up in everything from 7 Days to Taskmaster, Educators to Good ...
In apparent defiance of the Biden administration, the Netanyahu government has now initiated missile strikes against Iran. Last Saturday night (Sunday morning in New Zealand) Iran launched more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles against Israeli military targets. With the assistance of US, UK and possibly French forces, ...
Māori representation brings a perspective that encompasses not only the interests of Māori communities but also a broader, holistic approach to environmental stewardship and community well-being, principles deeply embedded in Te Ao Māori (the Māori ...
This week in Auckland, a group of young people took over the microphone at a ministerial press conference, to explain why they oppose the Fast-Track Approvals Bill. One young woman said, ‘We’re here because we love Aotearoa New Zealand. We want to raise our children in an environment that’s thriving, ...
The summer was wonderful. Evie was wonderful, too; finally a teenager, finally worthy of long, hot days. She shaved her legs for the first time and bought cut-off shorts from the op-shop that made them look long. She got a Warehouse singlet so tight on her new shape that her ...
When Thomas James was on his solo camp as part of Outward Bound, the keen outdoorsman didn’t find it too challenging, as others often do. In what might just be the perfect illustration of his character, he saw it as a great opportunity to solve a few problems. “I thought, ...
From the unstable and drippy to the hi-tech and pretty, here’s our ranking of all the tunnels you can drive through in this country. The first tunnel seems to have been built in 2200BC in Babylonia, kicking off a global phenomenon for digging holes in order to get places more ...
Lucinda Bennett on the art of being greedy but resourceful. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. When I picture the market, it is always this time of year. Crisp air, dripping nose, counting coins with cold fingers. Sunlight pale, filtered through specks of dew still ...
Zoë Colling’s favourite piece in the ‘That’s So Last Century’ collection is a lubrication chart for a sewing machine from the ’60s. It’s about the size of a postcard, and carefully maintained. “I like it that this piece of ephemera highlights that manual and technical side of the skill involved ...
Kia Ora Gaza A passionate haka reverberated through Auckland International Airport as a medical team of three New Zealand doctors received an emotional farewell from a big crowd of supporters before flying to Turkey to join the international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. The doctors, who left Auckland yesterday, hope to ...
With submissions closing today, Macassey-Pickard says groups around the country have been supporting a huge range of people to make their submissions. ...
Our response to the new legislation is informed by targeted conversations with practitioners working in the system and through an implementation lens. ...
The new ‘Fast-track Approvals Bill’ would give just three Ministers the power to approve or deny development projects. They would avoid the usual checks and balances that are in place to protect rivers, land, the ocean, and communities. ...
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle Helen Clark, how I miss you. The former New Zealand Prime Minister — the safest pair of hands this country has had in living memory — gave a masterclass on the importance of maintaining an independent foreign policy when she spoke at an AUKUS symposium held ...
The government's released the list of organisations provided with information on how to apply - just hours before public submissions on the bill close. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney Before climate change really got going, eastern Australia’s flash floods tended to concentrate on our coastal regions, east of the Great Dividing Range. But that’s changing. Now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Finkel, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, La Trobe University Sia Duff / South Australian Museum In February, the South Australian Museum “re-imagined” itself. In the face of rising costs and inadequate government funds, CEO David Gaimster, who took the reins last June, declared ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Pearce, Professor, School of Allied Heath, Human Services & Sport, La Trobe University, La Trobe University This week, Collingwood AFL player Nathan Murphy announced his retirement, brought on by his concussion history and ongoing issues. The 24-year-old’s seemingly sudden retirement, ...
The Mental Health Foundation provides support and resources for those facing the loss of their job, so it’s wrong in the very week the Government adds another 1000 jobs to its tally of cuts, that this is happening. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney Daniel Boud/Sydney Theatre Company Decay, terror, revulsion. These are three of the central themes of Thomas Bernhard’s rarely performed play The President. The Austrian is one of the greatest ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says threats by ministers Shane Jones and David Seymour to reform or close down the Waitangi Tribunal were “ill-considered”, as legal experts say the ministers may have breached Cabinet Manual conventions. “I think those comments are ill-considered and we expect all ministers to actually exercise good ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ye In (Jane) Hwang, Postdoctoral Research Associate at School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney Shutterstock You’d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn’t require some form of digital literacy. We need only to look back ten ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Newton, Professor of Exercise Medicine, Edith Cowan University Pexels/RDNE stock project You’re not in your 20s or 30s anymore and you know regular health checks are important. So you go to your GP. During the appointment they measure your waist. ...
A new poem by Evangeline Riddiford Graham. Mitochondrial Problem I. It was long drive to Kansas for the man and his dog but you have to understand he said She doesn’t fly. Which calls to mind not carsick shitting barking or whining but a dog who chooses not to as ...
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 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)Hot off the press, this debut ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Wajnryb McDonald, PhD candidate in Criminology, University of Sydney Less than 24 hours after Ashlee Good was murdered in Bondi Junction, her family released a statement requesting the media take down photographs they had reproduced of Ashlee and her family without ...
Chief executive Shaun Robinson said it has not had any government funding cut, but government-funded contracts have not kept pace with rising costs. ...
The Ministry of Health has delayed the release of its evidence brief on the safety, reversibility and mental health and wellbeing outcomes for puberty blockers. While we wait, Julia de Bres speaks to those with firsthand experience. Best practice gender-affirming healthcare is based on trans people’s self-determination and agency. The ...
Barcelona’s city streets have gone from traffic-clogged to pedestrian-friendly. How? Superblocks. Ellen Rykers explains. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week I read a great interview with renowned urbanist Janette Sadik-Khan by The Spinoff’s Wellington editor Joel MacManus: “You can reimagine streets, ...
Student groups ‘Climate Action VUW’, Schools Strike 4 Climate and VUWSA will be on the street in Wellington today, the last day for submissions on the Fast-track Approvals Bill, with a message that the fight against the Government’s ‘War on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sofia Ammassari, Research Fellow, Griffith University Since 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity has grown exponentially – and so has the formidable organisational machine of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). These two factors will be key to delivering the BJP a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon Hyndman, Associate Professor of Education (Adjunct) & Senior Manager (BCE), Charles Sturt University During COVID almost all Australian students and their families experienced online learning. But while schools have long since gone back to in-person teaching, online learning has not gone ...
Yes, they’re better for the environment. No, that’s not a good enough reason for me to use them. Once every 26 days or so, my period arrives, and if struck by an act of God, I am caught red-crotched without products. How, after 17 years of this, do I still ...
“It will cause significant harm to our environment and communities. It is completely at odds with New Zealanders’ relationship with nature and our need for a low-carbon, sustainable economic future." ...
The Chair of the National Maori Authority, Matthew Tukaki, has warned a Parliamentary Select Committee that fast-tracking legislation is a perilous practice that undermines the core tenets of democracy, transparency, and accountability. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Tenbensel, Associate Professor, Health Policy, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images Since coming into power, the coalition government has adopted a simple but shrewd see-how-fast-we-can-move political strategy. However, in the health sector this need for speed entails ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Hronis, Clinical Psychologist, University of Technology Sydney Darya Sannikova/Pexels Whether you’re watching TV, attending a footy game, or eating a meal at your local pub, gambling is hard to escape. Although the rise of gambling is not unique to Australia, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Wong, Forrest Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia Have you ever wondered if there are more insects out at night than during the day? We set out to answer this question by combing through the scientific ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carol T Kulik, Research Professor, University of South Australia IR Stone/Shutterstock In Australia, it’s not the done thing to know – let alone ask – what our colleagues are paid. Yet, it’s easy to see how pay transparency can make pay ...
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is sounding a warning to migrants, that running foul of the law may see them leaving the country prematurely. ...
The government’s plan to get 50,000 people off jobseeker support by 2030 has had a rocky start, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Beneficiary numbers are up – and so are ...
Raglan Roast is a staple of Wellington coffee culture. But with five branches across the capital, which one is the best? I am a die-hard Raglan Roast fan. It’s consistently the most affordable cafe in Wellington, and one of the only places you can get a coffee after 3pm. So, ...
Residents of University of Auckland halls are being urged to withhold their accommodation fees from May 1, in a bid to force the university to take student concerns over rent hikes seriously.The University of Auckland is facing a strike from students over the cost of on-campus accommodation. The Students ...
New Zealand and the Philippines have signed a new maritime security agreement and stated their concerns over activity in the South China Sea, as Chinese vessels continue to flout international law. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Philippines President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos committed to signing a Mutual Logistics Supporting Arrangement by ...
The thousands of government “back-office” job cuts are causing widespread pain in the capital city. In today’s episode of The Detail, we speak to three journalists and a think tank researcher, looking at the larger picture around the cuts and what effect it will have on Wellington, a city that’s ...
Opinion: The famed American architect and urban designer Daniel Burnham once said, “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood!” Burnham wouldn’t have been referring to the transport plans in Aotearoa New Zealand over the past five years; projects so big they hadn’t the credibility to ...
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Hineaupounamu ‘Missy’ Nuku has been scaling mountains in Canada for her college basketball team, the Lakeland Rustlers. Alberta is currently home for the 20-year-old point guard, who is in her first year of a scholarship at Lakeland College, where she is studying for a business degree. She has certainly made ...
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?