His place is in Parliament

Its 100 days to the election, so NZ First is going all-in on gutter racism to whip up its base of racist zombies. First, we had Winston Peters telling Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan to "go back to your own country", and now we have Shame Jones saying he should "know his place". Both of which are just fucking boggling. Xu-Nan has lived here since he was eight, and is a New Zealand citizen. Aotearoa is his country. He belongs here just as much as any other kiwi. As for Winston's suggestion that he opposes democracy because of his ethnicity, I think he's shown a far greater commitment to it than the urgency-abusing, vote-suppressing, racist zombie currently serving as foreign minister. Not least because he's part of an actually democratic party, where power is held by the members, rather than one which is an autocracy where all decisions are made by a withered corpse smothered in hair gel.

As for "knowing his place", the implicit assumption here is that there is a natural hierarchy in Aotearoa in which some people are or ought to be in charge, and others should be subservient and not question them. And I think when you put it that nakedly, most New Zealanders would have a very simple response to that proposition: fuck that. And fuck the parties who advocate it. Lawrence Xu-Nan is a kiwi who was elected to Parliament by Green voters. His place is in the House.

In a democracy, everyone gets to vote

Its election year, so Winston is back on his bullshit, spewing racism in an effort to pander to his voting base of mostly old, mostly white racists. His latest idea? That only citizens should be allowed to vote:

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has announced a policy to restrict voting rights to only those with New Zealand citizenship.

Peters announced the policy at a public meeting in Warkworth on Sunday afternoon.

Currently, legal residents living in New Zealand continuously for a year or more, and whose visa does not require them to leave within a certain time are eligible to vote.

Announcing his new policy on Sunday, party leader Peters said voting "should be a privilege of those who have sworn allegiance to New Zealand, and who have made the commitment to make New Zealand their home and their future".

"If you haven't made that commitment or sworn that allegiance, we are happy to let you live here permanently, but why should you get a say in how this country is run or governed?" he said.

To which the short answer is "because they live here, you disgusting zombie".

The longer answer is that Aotearoa has a long tradition of recognising that everyone who lives here should have a say in the future of this place. Its been the case for over 50 years now, and its part of our democracy. And one of the reasons for it is that we were late to establish our own citizenship, and thus had to deal with a huge population of migrants from the old imperial center, who had made lives here, belonged here, but never had to do any formal paperwork to do so. And so, when we had to seriously grapple with that in the 1970's (thanks to Britain deciding that people it had invaded and oppressed and passed laws saying they were British whether they liked it or not, suddenly weren't British after all, especially if they might actually want to exercise their right to live in Britain), the easiest way of doing so was simply to delete the words "He is a British subject" from the 1956 Electoral Act, reducing the qualification to simply being "ordinarily resident in New Zealand" (plus the usual stuff about living here for a year and in the relevant electorate for a month etc). And then, once we'd passed our own citizenship legislation, the law assumed the form we know today, recognising voting rights for New Zealand citizens as well as permanent residents.

Ironically, the group protected by that transition - old British migrants who came here in the 1950's and 60's - are one of the cores of NZ First's support today. And it wouldn't surprise me in the least if some of them still aren't citizens (because they have never had any need to be; they live here and they belong here).

The other irony is that when Winston talks about how voting "should be a privilege of those who have sworn allegiance to New Zealand", he would effectively exclude almost all native-born New Zealanders from the electorate. Because if you were born here, you've never had to do anything of the sort! The only people who have actually "sworn allegiance to New Zealand" (in reality, to a foreign monarch who lives on the other side of the world) are immigrants who have made a conscious choice to become citizens, and weirdos (soldiers, police officers, and MPs). That might be Winston's vision of a perfect democracy, but it isn't mine - or, I think, Aotearoa's. In a democracy, everyone gets to vote. Its that simple. And people who try and undermine that need to be de-elected.

National gets Winstoned

"Reform health and safety law and regulations" is one of the commitments in the National-ACT coalition agreement, and ACT has advanced it with the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill which (somewhat predictably) guts workplace health and safety, letting employers maim at will. The bill is currently up for its second reading, and the plan was clearly to pass it before the election. But there's a problem: Winston Peters:

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says he will not vote for the government's health and safety reforms if there are not changes to the legislation, after earlier saying he was hamstrung by the coalition agreement.

Pike River campaigners Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse are in Wellington, hoping to persuade politicians to reject legislation they say risks a workplace disaster.

The Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill proposes a radical shake up of New Zealand's health and safety laws.

Speaking to RNZ's Checkpoint after meeting with Osborne and Rockhouse, Peters said he did not have confidence in the Bill as it stood.

Winston did a lot of this when he was in coalition with Labour, agreeing to something, then threatening to veto it at a late stage unless changes were made. While its entertaining to see National getting the same treatment, its a sign that he simply cannot be trusted, and there is no good faith in any coalition relationship he is a party to.

He's since changed his tune, saying he can't vote against it and instead promising to fix it after the election. That seems unlikely to satisfy his supporters, who are demanding action. But voting against it won't satisfy his donors, who have given him half a million dollars to keep propping up ACT, so he's kindof fucked either way. Which is exactly what he deserves for being such a duplicitious shit.

If we're lucky, Winston's prevaricating will be enough to stall this bill at the committee stage. Otherwise, its just something else for the Omnibus Repeal Bill, with or without Winston.

More culture-war bullshit

That's the only way to describe the regime's announcement today that new citizens will be forced to pass a test on the "responsibilities and privileges" of citizenship, "covering topics like the Bill of Rights Act, voting rights and the structure of government." Which is a bit rich coming from a regime which has shat all over the BORA, restricted voting rights, and abolishes core government agencies and capabilities at a whim because they said something a Minister doesn't like (or applied the law to someone the Minister does).

Winston Peters says this is because "some of the people who have come here who don't salute our flag, don't honour the values of our country, don't respect the people living here", which again shows how out of touch that fossil is. Real kiwis don't "salute the flag" unless they're in a job which requires it. Anyone who does is some sort of weirdo. We're not Americans, and we don't want to be like them.

But Winston is right about one thing: there are people here who don't honour the values of our country or respect the people living here. They're in the Beehive, running the place, doing shit like this. And the sooner we vote them out on their arses, the better.

Terrible instincts

The Herald has a story today about emails released by Winston Peters under the OIA, showing that prime minister Christopher Luxon wanted to go all-in on backing Trump's stupid and illegal war against Iran. A lot of the story and subsequent material is about the subsequent coalition ructions - who is undermining who, and whether the regime will last until the election in November. But what it shows is just how truly terrible Luxon's instincts are, and how politically out of touch he is. American wars have universally turned out to be unjutifiable disasters, and as a result are not popular with New Zealanders - and this one is no exception. Trump's illegal bombing has taken the world from uncomfortable stability, to a global fossil fuels and economic crisis, while killing and maiming thousands of people. And it is about as popular here as dogshit and politicians. And fundie weirdo armageddon-cultist Luxon wanted to - and still wants to - support that?

The first instinct of past New Zealand leaders - Helen Clark, for example - has been to keep us well away from American wars. Its a good rule of thumb. Luxon's abandonment of it shows how terrible his instincts are. And if he's that unthinkingly American, maybe he should go back there?

An utter shambles

Last week, the regime rammed through its deeply unpopular Regulatory Standards Act, imposing a radical Libertarian ideological straitjacket on all future actions by the New Zealand state. As part of the current regime, NZ First voted for the bill. And now, just a week later, they're promising to repeal it:

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has vowed to repeal the Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB) if re-elected next year.

It's prompted the bill's key proponent, ACT leader David Seymour, to warn Peters could be jumping ship to Labour.

Peters told Radio Waatea's Dale Husband he wanted the bill gone earlier on Thursday, having voted it through its third reading this time last week.

"It was their deal, the ACT Party's deal with the National Party. We were opposed to this from the word go but you've only got so many cards you can play.

"We did our best to neutralise its adverse effects and we will campaign at the next election to repeal it."

While its good to see they've decided the law is a bad idea, it would have been better if they'd made their opposition clear last week, when it mattered, rather than this week when it doesn't. But the problem for Winston is that this makes it clear that we just can't trust anything he says. He might promise something in an election campaign or even a coalition agreement, but he might change his mind a week later, or work within government to sabotage the policies he has supposedly pledged to support. No-one can rely on such a party - not the other parties they would need to work with to form a government, and certainly not the voters, who can't be sure what they'll be getting. But then, hasn't that always been the case with Winston?

Meanwhile, I guess we can enjoy watching the current regime slowly collapsing under the weight of its internal hatreds. And the sooner it all falls apart and we can throw them all out on their arses, the better.

Shameful and cowardly

That is the only way to describe the regime's refusal today to recognise Palestine. Faced with a clear moral test - an illegal occupation and an ongoing genocide - they blew it. They'd rather toady to fascists and génocidaires than do the right thing.

The message is clear: if we want a government which will (eventually) follow the world and do the right thing, we need regime change. Bring on the election, so we can vote these genocidal chickenshits out.

Still wibbling

On Monday, Australia, Canada, and the UK finally recognised Palestine. Today, France followed suit. Meanwhile, New Zealand is still wibbling:

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has refused to be drawn over whether New Zealand will join nations taking steps to formally recognised a Palestinian state.

[...]

Peters said there were many days to go, and he planned to spend those days "finding out all the facts".

"We've been waiting 80 long years for an answer here, and a few days finding out all the facts will not be wasted."

Asked what information he was searching for while in New York this week, Peters said "we're here to listen, hear all the arguments, all the facts as best known, and when we have them, we will finalise our decision".

I assume the "facts" he is waiting to hear are his marching orders from the fascist regime in Washington. Because he is clearly not interested in what is happening on the ground in Gaza - genocide, a crime against humanity - or in the views of fellow UN member-states, 80% of whom recognise Palestine. Let alone those of New Zealanders, 40% of whom support immediate recognition (vs 22% who oppose it).

Once upon a time, Aotearoa stood up for what was right on the international stage. This regime clearly will not. If we want a government which reflects our values, they have to go.

(Of course, recognition is only the first step. We need full sanctions and a trade-ban on Israel, an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for genocide and war crimes, and an international effort to identify, locate, and arrest them).

Aotearoa is no longer a democracy

A regime Minister uses their parliamentary platform to slander an opposition MP as a pedophile, resulting in escalating threats to their safety. Eventually, they are forced to resign in order to protect their child from harm.

Putin's Russia? Orban's Hungary? No, it's Winston Peters' New Zealand:

The Green Party’s Benjamin Doyle is resigning as an MP, citing concerns for their safety and the wellbeing of their whānau.

[...]

In a statement on Friday afternoon, Doyle said they decided to resign after their young child had asked them to leave Parliament for their own wellbeing.

“After having baseless and violent accusations thrown at me, and an onslaught of hate, vitriol and threats of real-world violence directed at me and my whānau, I have decided to move on from Parliament.

“Whānau is the most precious thing in the world. From the start, I have always said my child is my priority. My tamati asked me to leave Parliament, and I am leaving for them and for my own wellbeing,” they said.

This is clearly the right decision for Doyle and their family (and good on them for putting their kid first - something too few MPs do). At the same time, its a terrible precedent for our democracy.

This is not the first time this has happened. Jacinda Ardern was bullied out of office. And there have been systematic campaigns against Golriz Ghahraman and Tory Whanau. It is clear that the right are pursuing a deliberate campaign of harassment and threats of violence as a way of over-ruling the will of the voters and eliminating effective opponents. In a normal country, the people responsible would be in jail. But clearly, we're not a normal country any more. Instead, we have a regime, whipping up mobs and using terror to silence opposition.

In a democracy, who represents us is meant to be decided by voting. A country where elected representatives are bullied out of office by threatening their children is no longer a democracy.

More colonial bullying

Back in February the Cook Islands - a former New Zealand colony which is now "self-governing in free association with New Zealand" - signed a strategic partnership agreement with China. Winston Peters was upset, feeling that he should have been consulted about such a move, and jerked the colonial chain. And now he's jerking it harder, cutting off support funding for the Cook Islands government:

New Zealand has paused its core sector support funding for the Cook Islands after its government signed partnership agreements with China earlier this year, Winston Peters' office says.

The Foreign Minister on Thursday confirmed the message was sent to the Cook Islands government "in its finality" on 4 June

However, it only become public on Thursday (19 June) after media reports in the Cook Islands.

While its easy to see this as Winston sabotaging Luxon (who is in China ATM), I think Peters' outdated world view is the real problem here. Like his protégé Shane Jones, Peters is a fossil politician with a fossilised worldview. Born during WWII, his model of how our society and politics should work is frozen sometime in the 1950s and 1960s - when New Zealand "had the best race relations in the world" (Māori were seen and not heard), was a loyal vassal of Britain and the US, and communism existed outside of the imaginations of sad far-right weirdos. More relevantly, the Cook Islands were still a colony. While they became self-governing in 1965, the relationship was very much in favour of New Zealand, which exercised political control through its high commissioner, judicial control through New Zealand judges, and even sent New Zealand police to enforce the rulings of said judges when premier Albert Henry was found to have committed election fraud in 1978 (shortly before Winston first entered parliament after an electoral petition in 1979).

But things have evolved a long way since then. The Cook Islands are now basically an independent country, with diplomatic relations with over 60 other nations. Even MFAT admits that it "conducts its own affairs", and that New Zealand's role is limited to "respond[ing] to requests for assistance with foreign affairs, disasters and defence". And in that context, Peters' attitude looks like a very ugly colonial throwback, the sort of international bullying modern Aotearoa is meant to oppose. It also seems unlikely to actually help things. Instead, it sets a clear incentive for the Cook Islands to seek that funding from China instead. And if that comes with strings attached which Peters doesn't like, well, he will have no-one to blame but himself.

Winston is inciting terrorism

That's the conclusion of a report into security risks against Green MP Benjamin Doyle, in the wake of Winston Peters' waging a homophobic hate-campaign against them:

GRC’s report said a “hostility network” of politicians, commentators, conspiracy theorists, alternative media outlets and those opposed to the rainbow community had produced dehumanising and violent commentary capable of encouraging or inspiring action from a lone-wolf attacker.

“Much of the threat is socially motivated, rooted in deep-seated transphobia, moral panic, and conspiratorial thinking - often under the guise of ‘child protection’” it stated.

[...]

“This is essentially the manufacturing of moral panic to reaffirm us-versus-them dynamics. This also could be indicative of stochastic terrorism becoming an enduring part of NZ political discourse.”

The report found a 75% to 85% chance of Doyle being subjected to stalking and harassment, and a 15% to 25% chance of a physical attack. That's what Winston and his hate network are inciting. And the mainstream media outlets who have spread it for clickbait need to take a good, hard look at themselves and what they are complicit in. The Prime Minister also needs to take a good, hard look at his current Deputy Prime Minister and coalition partners, and consider whether inciting a terrorist attack against an opposition MP is really appropriate behaviour for a Cabinet Minister, or a member of his coalition.

A disrespectful foreign policy

The first item I remember on RNZ news this morning was that Winston is threatening to cut all aid to Kiribati because they wouldn't meet with him. Of course, there's more to the story than that - Kiribati's president had a pre-planned and significant historical event - but clearly Winston thinks that he should drop everything to give him his vital "I visited every Pacific country" photo op. Meanwhile, Judith Collins makes the colonialism and white supremacy even more explicit when she says "we can't have a disrespectful relationship". Quite. But who's disrespecting who here?

Which also makes me think of yesterday's international mess over Trump threatening Colombia (a friendly nation and an American ally, which had asked that its people be treated respectfully when being deported, and was threatened with tarriffs and sanctions in response). There was some commentary on BlueSky from @Pwnallthethings about how such spats tend to have uncertain and long-term diplomatic consequences, and how they are felt and remembered very differently in the metropole than in the small nations they are bullying (the obvious local examples of this are how we kiwis still remember American bullying over nuclear ships, and French terrorism against Greenpeace, and this still influences our relationships with both countries).

To bring it back to Kiribati: regardless of whether aid is ultimately cut or not, the fact Winston made this threat, over something so small, will likely be felt and remembered there for a very long time. Winston's petty tantrum may have poisoned our relations with Kiribati for a decade, and (since Judith Collins seems to care) may help push them closer to China. Whoops. Maybe we shouldn't have a thin-skinned petty old colonialist with an outsized sense of victimhood running our foreign policy?

NZDF is still hostile to oversight

Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying outright to both the public and to Ministers. But National doesn't believe in transparency or oversight of those in power, and seems to think that NZDF can be trusted not to commit war crimes (or just kill people through sheer incompetence), so they wanted to get rid of it. Fortunately, NZ First said "no". So I guess we have something to thank Winston for after all.

But the article does make it clear that despite supposedly having accepted the findings of the Inquiry, NZDF is still implacably opposed to any independent oversight of its actions, and is fighting it tooth-and-nail through the bureaucracy:

A separate briefing to Collins shortly after she took office last December shows defence officials expressing concern about the “additional direct and indirect costs and personnel overheads” associated with the inspectorate’s creation.

“It is anticipated that the five-person office … will impose a significant work demand within the Office of the Chief of Defence Force and the wider NZDF for handling requests for information, coordinating [inspectorate-]initiated investigations and reviews, facilitating Base, Camp and Operational (domestic and international) visits and managing related service and support functions,” the briefing said.

Oh no. Outside scrutiny might cost more. Except those costs are a pittance compared to the cost of another NZDF fuckup. And it turns out that NZDF has endless money to spend on mushrooming inquiries - which is perhaps the real cost they're worried about. And it does suggest an interesting OIA in a few years time: how many staff does NZDF have assigned to dealing with the IGD, and how many times bigger is that number than the IGD's entire staff.

"Entirely separate"

When two people whose identities we all know but cannot say publicly due to name suppression were charged with "Obtaining by Deception" over routing donations to NZ First through the NZ First Foundation, Winston Peters claimed his party had been exonerated because "The Foundation is an entirely separate entity from the New Zealand First Party". In which case, maybe he'd like to explain why the latter is being briefed on its financials and treating the money as their own?

NZ First leader Winston Peters and high-ranking MPs were briefed about the NZ First Foundation's expenses and activities one year before it first made headlines, Stuff can reveal, contradicting Peters' consistent claims the foundation had nothing to do with his political party.

Stuff has seen an internal party report that, according to a source familiar with the matter, was presented to Peters in November 2018.

[...]

The report referenced money in NZ First Party’s Kiwibank account as well as money in the Foundation's ASB bank account. It totalled expenses incurred by the ASB account and classed them as party costs.

Which sounds a lot like this entity isn't "separate" at all, but effectively owned and controlled by the party. Which makes you wonder how long the two people charged will stick it out facing seven years for obtaining by deception before rolling on Winston to get two years for a corrupt electoral practice?

Corruption on the ice

While everyone is looking at the blood on the tiles this morning from Iain Lees-Galloway's political demise, there's a real story which needs our attention: Winston Peters gave two rich friends a taxpayer-funded trip to Antarctica:

oreign Minister Winston Peters directed Antarctica New Zealand to give two highly-prized spots on a trip to the icy continent to two women closely linked to one of South East Asia's richest families.

Bee Lin Chew and her daughter Su Arn Kwek, who are dual Malaysian-New Zealand citizens, travelled to Scott Base, at taxpayer expense, in February after Antarctica New Zealand scrambled to make room for them at the insistence of Peters' office.

Emails released under the Official Information Act show Antarctica New Zealand pushing back at the request to include Chew and Kwek, as only one spot was available and that was supposed to be for a government minister.

Tax payer-funded Antarctica New Zealand initially warned that science programmes or essential staff may have to be cut to make room for the women. But it ultimately managed to fulfill the request without disruption to the programme and in line with the "firmly held" views from Peters' office.

There's no information on how much this cost, but the answer is likely to be substantial, both in the imputed cost of the seats and associated training, and the opportunity cost of not being able to fill them with scientists. These are not things you can just buy, time on the ice is horribly limited (and thus incredibly valuable). And here the Minister is dispensing it as a political favour in a clear abuse of office. The obvious question is whether there was a donation involved, and Chew explicitly denies this (though at the same time highlights how politically connected she is). But equally obviously, the donation or kickback didn't need to come from her. Winston says it was a favour to his "old friend" Philip Burdon, so I guess we need to ask what he was getting (or expects to get) in return? Cosying up for the post-retirement corporate directorships?

And regardless: even if simply done as a political favour, this is a corrupt abuse of office, and Winston needs to be held accountable for it. But of course, given the coalition dynamics, he won't. And thus the rot will be allowed to fester and spread. Unless of course we vote him and his party out in September.

Lining their own pockets

There's a new twist in the Winston Peters secret donation story. It appears that a significant chunk of NZ First's secret laundered donations goes straight into the pockets of the people administering the scheme:

Tens of thousands in donor's funds given to the New Zealand First Foundation were spent paying expenses, wages and bills for people closely associated with the New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.

The foundation, which has bankrolled NZ First using secret donations from rich business people, spent more than $130,000 on a company run by Brian Henry - the personal lawyer and close friend of Peters.

Documents obtained by RNZ show that between January 2018 and July 2019, the foundation took in $224,000 in donations from supporters - and overall, spent at least $368,000.

Of that, at least $137,000 of foundation funds were spent on a company called QComms.

Company office records show the sole director and shareholder of QComms is Brian Henry, who is a trustee of the foundation and the judicial officer of the New Zealand First party.

The money laundry paid Henry's daughter's rent and expenses, as well as John Thorn, the former NZ First official who wrote the memo suggesting setting it up. It also paid for air travel for Winston's partner Jan Trotman, who at the time was in business with Henry in a dodgy forestry scheme which attempted to extract money from the Provincial Growth partnership. No doubt there'll be reasons for all of this, but at the least it shows that Winston's money laundry is an orgy of nepotism and self-dealing by NZ First insiders. Which just makes it look personally corrupt as well as institutionally dodgy.

Meanwhile the SFO has promised to have a decision on whether to lay charges before the election. The sooner that happens, the better. Voters need to know what the situation is long before the voting period starts, so they can decide whether they want this party back in Parliament again.

More NZ First corruption

Oh look! NZ First's secret slush fund was laundering donations from Talley's:

One of the country's biggest fishing companies, Talley's, and its managing director donated nearly $27,000 to the New Zealand First Foundation, which has been bankrolling the New Zealand First Party.

The foundation received $26,950 from seafood giant Talley's and from managing director Sir Peter Talley between 2017 and 2019, according to records viewed by RNZ.

It received the money from Talley's in four amounts - all of which were below the threshold for public disclosure and so have not been publicly revealed until now.

Meanwhile, NZ First has been blocking a fisheries review, as well as monitoring cameras on boats and other tighter regulation. Which obviously is a complete coincidence, right?

As with their secret donations from the racing industry, this creates a stench of corruption around all government fisheries policy decisions. Its a perfect example of why we need total transparency in party funding, and why we need to keep money out of politics.

History repeats?

A Labour government desperate for the numbers crawls into bed with Winston Peters. Winston ignores the law and secretly takes money under the table from someone. When it is exposed just months out from an election, he is investigated by the Serious Fraud Office.

That's what happened back in 2008. And its happening again. Back then, Peters was immediately suspended as a Minister when the investigation was announced. But politics (and Winston) is more shameless now, and politicians care less about what the public thinks of them, so who knows if that's going to happen? But if it doesn't, then we're going to be in a situation where a Minister under investigation for taking secret donations is still exercising power, still potentially selling influence. And that will make the entire government look even more corrupt and dirty.

(The third act of this story is "Labour loses the election". Maybe they've got more of a chance this time because National also has its own dirty donations story, which has resulted in prosecution. But if it goes that way, Labour will have no-one to blame but themselves. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas...)

Meanwhile, with two of the five parties in Parliament under investigation or in court for laundering donations, we need to fix the system which enables this corruption. Public funding, freeing parties from the need to beg for money and so effectively prostitute their policies, is an obvious solution. Get the money out of politics, so the public's voice can be heard again. But if people don't want to go that far, then at the least, we need massively lowered disclosure thresholds, real-time disclosure of every donation, and annual audits by the SFO to ensure that the rules are properly complied with and that politicians don't try any dirty tricks to get around them. Plus an audit of the past five or ten years' donations to every party, so we can tell who is clean and who is not. But of course, the politicians will never vote to put their own in jail. So the first step is to vote them out and replace them with people who will.

Finally

When Winston Peters was caught money laundering donations and stalking journalists, the Greens were conspicuous by their silence. It was another example of how getting along with their government partners was eroding their values and their own reputation. It was obviously unsustainable, and so now James Shaw has finally spoken up about it:

The Greens have broken their silence and expressed alarm at the published photos of Gray with the journalists who have been reporting on donations to the party.

But party co-leader James Shaw, who has until now been reluctant to weigh in on the saga surrounding the NZ First Foundation, stopped short of asking questions of governing partner New Zealand First.

[...]

Shaw also took a step further in relation to questions about the NZF Foundation and whether it has properly declared donations to the NZF party.

"The allegations are concerning and due process must be followed while they are investigated," Shaw said.

"We know New Zealanders will be looking at this issue and worrying about what it means for their democracy, which is why we are focused on making the system more transparent and fair."

And on the latter front, he has a proposal for a citizen's assembly to set electoral donation rules. Its a good idea: its our democracy, and the politicians who we have trusted to set the rules so far are obviously compromised by their own self-interest and incapable of doing a good job of it. The problem of course is that those same compromised politicians would have to enact whatever reforms the assembly came up with. And judging by their past behaviour over electoral reform, they would simply refuse to do so, then when dragged kicking and screaming to it, do their best to undermine it to protect the corrupt status quo. As with so many of our problems (climate change, housing, poverty), fixing it requires the destruction or significant weakening of the current political establishment.

(And meanwhile, Jacinda Ardern is still trying to say that its nothing to do with her. Bullshit. She's the Prime Minister, and wholly responsible for the ethical standards of her Cabinet. Pretending otherwise is simply a coward's way of saying that she's perfectly fine with corruption and dirty politics when its done by her allies, or at least willing to look the other way. But while this denial of responsibility gives her formal deniability, the problem is that this stench is not going to go away, and some of it is going to stick to her. And if it costs her a second term, she will have only herself to blame).

Winston does dirty politics

Winston Peters and NZ First have come under pressure in the past few months, after leaks about their secret money laundering foundation led to them being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. And so they've retaliated, by stalking the journalists reporting on the case, and smearing them on a sewerblog:

NZ First Leader Winston Peters says he was involved in having photographs taken of RNZ journalist Guyon Espiner, Stuff reporter Matt Shand and former NZ First president Lester Gray.

The photographs were posted on The BFD, a Whale Oil-linked website which has been running stories defending New Zealand First and trying to belittle reporting about the NZ First Foundation donations.

The photos ran with an article criticising the reporting, which Espiner and Shand have both been involved in.

This is simply dirty politics, and its unacceptable. Its also clearly unethical, and a violation of the Cabinet Manual requirement for Ministers to "behave in a way that upholds, and is seen to uphold, the highest ethical standards". And for that, Winston should be sacked.