Outski

The High Court has found that SIS Inspector-General Laurie Greig displayed apparent bias in the Ahmed Zaoui case and that he should stand aside:

In our judgment the Inspector-General’s interview statements about refugees and his subsequent dealings with the Director and members of the media raise, when considered together, the real possibility of apparent bias against Mr Zaoui when undertaking his review of the Director’s decision: in the first instance of undue disfavour or partiality against Mr Zaoui, and in the second of undue favour or partiality towards the Director.

[...]

We agree with Mr Harrison that this process requires adherence to the highest standards of impartiality, given Mr Zaoui’s complete reliance on the Inspector-General’s performance of his functions and the consequences for him of an adverse decision. It is also imperative that a process of this importance, both to Mr Zaoui and to our wider security interests, is not tainted by tenable, ongoing questions about the Inspector-General’s independence. These factors lead us to conclude that the Inspector-General should stand aside from the review process

(The full decision is here)

Greig has responded by submitting his resignation to the Governor-General.

While this will undoubtably delay proceedings even further while a replacement I-G is appointed, it's still a major victory for Zaoui. All along he's been fighting for a fair process; this decision makes that more likely. In the process he has also defended the right of all new Zealanders to fair, open and impartial justice, and that is something we should all be celebrating.

Update: Meanwhile, ACT is saying that the Zaoui case should never have been allowed to get in front of a court, and Winston Peters that it is "scandalous" that Zaoui has "successfully challenged the top security official in New Zealand at the taxpayers’ expense". Justice, it seems, is something only deserved by rich, white people - not by refugees.

Meanwhile, United Future's prime concern seems to be the cost to the taxpayer of keeping Zaoui in prison. To the extent that this encourages swift justice, it is good - at the same time, there's some obviously misplaced priorities there. And if the government is that concerned about the cost, they can always do what they should have done all along, and release Zaoui on bail pending the outcome of the review of his Security Risk Certificate.

Scoop has a long and interesting article about the SIS and Laurie Greig. Go read it.

Healing the past

The New Plymouth District Council last night voted to start the process of returning land confiscated at the beginning of the New Zealand Wars to local Iwi.

The land will be passed to the crown to be included as part of a final settlement. Assuming, that is, that the council can fight off the leasholders, who seem to be intent on restarting the wars all over again...

New Fisk

Bremer closes hardline newspaper and Iraqis ask: Is this democracy US-style?

Pamplona has the running of the bulls, Te Kuiti has the running of the sheep...

Palestine update

The underfunded UN Relief and Works Agency is being forced to cut off food aid to Gaza because of Israeli security restrictions.

At the same time, Ariel Sharon's Likud party is planning to poll its members on whether to pull out from Gaza. Shouldn't they be polling the Palestinians?

Some thoughts on energy policy

Here's a few semi-coherent thoughts sparked by Aqua's demise:

Firstly, contrary to the hysteria from the business community, we are not facing any sort of electricity shortage in the near-term. According to these figures from the Minister of Energy, there is 685 MW of new generating capacity planned for the next three years (I'm deliberately excluding reserve generation from this figure). This compares well with our projected demand growth of 150 MW a year.

Secondly, in response to the comment from Comalco that it seems that "no-one is responsible" for electricity planning: this is what happens in a market. The business community wanted markets for everything, and (thanks to Max Bradford), they got one for electricity. It seems a little rich for them to compain about it now.

(IMHO electricity generation is an area which would benefit from centralised planning. The invisible hand seems to spend too much time scratching its head over uncertainties in other markets (see below), or rubbing its invisible partner with glee at the thought of windfall profits from shortages, rather than providing an efficient network with sufficient slack to deal with dry years and maintenance downtime. But a market is what we have, and I don't think we can get rid of it, so we'll just have to try and make the best of it).

Thirdly, while we don't seem to have a short-term problem with generating capacity, we do have a signficant medium-term problem: Maui. 21% of our electricity is generated by burning natural gas, the bulk of it from this field. It will run out in the next few years, leaving us with a significant shortfall. While there are other fields, they are much smaller, and will only extend things for a few extra years (and at a much higher price). And because Maui gas was rediculously cheap, it discouraged exploration for twenty years, meaning that there are no major fields in reserve. While there's some promising steps being taken to resolve this problem (by the market, even), it's still an enormous source of uncertainty. Unless there's a major find in the next two years, we will need to switch our gas-fired stations over to coal.

(Interestingly, Project Aqua was having the same effect as Maui, even before it was built. It could produce electricity cheaper than any alternative (mainly because there's no rental on water), and this discouraged other companies' plans for new generation.)

Burning coal for power is like rolling in your own excrement. It's dirty, causes acid rain, and is not particularly energy efficient. On the carbon front, it generates about three times as much CO₂ per MegaJoule as gas, so in order to meet our Kyoto obligations we will need to plant a lot more trees. Unfortunately, we have shitloads of it, so it's the natural fuel of last resort (I'm with Mike in regarding the prospect of using nuclear power in New Zealand as laughable).

Can we avoid having to return to a nineteenth century fuel? Probably not, at least in the short term. But we can go a long way towards reducing its necessity. According to the Ministry of Economic Development's report on Power Generation Options for New Zealand, there is significant untapped geothermal capacity (a few hundred MW worth). There is also "at least 1000MW - and possibly 2000MW" of additional hydro capacity with "limited environmental impact" (though MED reccommends a serious study of resources in this area, since the last studies were done back in the 80's). And finally, there's wind, which seems to be the obvious choice. Wind turbines are cheaper than hydro, cost-competitive with coal, can be installed quickly, and have few environmental issues. They are also modular, allowing them to easily cope with growth in demand. The total available resource is estimated at 8000 GWh/yr, about twice the total currently generated by natural gas, so there's plenty of room for growth.

So in the long-term, we can achieve a green mix of hydo and wind supplying baseload, with peak "firming" and dry-year generation supplied by geothermal and coal (or gas). But in the short-term, we will probably have to burn some coal. We can reduce this amount by encouraging wind now, and to some extent the government is already doing this. We can also to some extent rely on the incentive structure set by the RMA. The cost of gaining resource consents for a coal-fired plant in both time and money are likely to be significant; the costs for a windfarm are much less (Meridian's Te Apiti site took a mere four days to gain its consent; I expect a coal-fired plant to be bogged down for years). This alone should encourage our electricity generators to do the right thing.

Fabricating a threat

Remember those mobile nuclear and bioweapons labs that the Americans were so obsessed with? The ones that Powell talked about in front of the UN? The ones that weapons inspectors have found no trace of? Unfortunately, there's been some disturbing revelations about the Americans' primary source on these phantom trailers: he made it all up, and was simply telling them what they wanted to hear. In exchange for a large amount of cash, of course.

Powell's "eyewitness" was actually the brother of one of Ahmed Chalabi's top aides. He lied about his academic credentials, and "omitted to tell his interlocutors he had been fired as a chemical engineer for the Iraqi army and jailed for embezzlement before fleeing Iraq in the late 1990s". He is now regarded by his handlers as an "out-and-out fabricator".

But I guess when you want to fabricate a threat, an out-and-out fabricator is who you turn to...

New Fisk

Black flags and veils as religion returns to campuses of Iraq

Political violence

From Orcinus: A livejournal user posted a photoshop of Dubya as a Klan Grand Dragon (sadly no longer viewable). This so offended some Republican fucktards in Kansas (where evolution didn't happen ^TM) that they stalked him over the net, then stole a van, drove all the way to Atlanta (where the guy lived), grabbed him outside a restaurant, beat him, cut him up, raped him with a sawn-off broomstick, and left him to die in an alleyway.

After reading this, I'm not sure about America being a pre-fascist state anymore.

Project Aqua is dead

This is probably the best decision, since it was a fairly dumb idea to begin with. Hydro is something you use for storage, not for flow-through generation. At the same time, it does still leave is with the problem of having to meet increased demand for electricity.

Guess Meridian will just have to start building windfarms...

Update: I see that the great RMA whinge has started already. And United Future's Gordon Copeland seems to think that Aqua included plans for a time-tunneling power cable which would bring us electricity from the future - that's the only way I can explain his comment that the project's demise creates the risk of "an electricity supply-and-demand gap in just three years".

Contrary to Copeland's hysteria (and that displayed on One News tonight), Aqua's cancellation does not mean the end of the New Zealand economy as we know it. We will simply build something else. The insane cheapness of Aqua - 4.5 c/kWh, rather than the 6 c/kWh or more of other proposals - caused its competitors to shelve their plans for new generating capacity. Now that Aqua is down the gurgler, they'll be dusting off those plans, rechecking the numbers, and starting the ball rolling again. Expect to see announcements in about six months.

Departures

Sock Thief is signing out...

Party of bigotry

United Future has announced their intention to try and scupper the Civil Unions Bill. But rather than pulling the traditional "homosexuality is evil" line, they've decided to present it as a case of misplaced priorities, asking:

"Why are we putting gay marriages before making sure that there are enough police on our streets, before ensuring that the sick get quick and effective treatment at our hospitals, before unclogging our roads and before giving our kids the education they need to survive in an increasingly complex world?"

Of course, that's a false dichotomy - the government is (theoretically) working on all of those issues to. But I'd also say that all those issues pale in significance compared to ensuring the fundamental equality of all New Zealanders. And that's what this is about - fundamental equality. Those who oppose civil unions or outright marriage are saying that gays - because of who and how they fuck - do not deserve to be treated the same as other New Zealanders, and that their sexuality marks them as less than full citizens. This is bigotry, and no more defensible than old-fashioned sexism and racism. If people don't like having that pointed out, then perhaps they shouldn't be bigots.

Suspicion is not enough

NZPols takes issue with my objecting to proposed SIS powers. Unfortunately she seems to have missed all that stuff at the bottom about "reasonable limits that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society", preferring instead to allege an absolute position and focus on my distrust of the SIS. So I guess I'll just have to expand my point a little...

Of course we can restrict the movement of people who are in jail (or those who are awaiting trial and may be a flight risk, or those who are insane enough to be a danger to themselves or others) - those are certainly reasonable limits in a free and democratic society. Could national security concievably provide a reason for restricting travel? Of course it could. The problem though is that these proposals put power in the hands of a body which has been shown to be incompetent, and has some fairly strange ideas about what "national security" means (it's all about spying on unions and burgling the homes of political activists, judging by their past behaviour). And this points to another key problem: that there is no independent oversight, no uninvolved pair of eyes looking at the question.

To go back to the example of jail, we do not let the government imprison people without trial. Such power is simply too open to abuse (and the abuses too terrible) for them to be trusted with it. Instead, we demand that they present their case before a judge, and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury.

(Unlike NZPols, I have no faith in the leader of the opposition as a sufficient safeguard. A party which denounces critics of increased SIS powers as "cringing, screaming lefties" has as much as indicated that it does not care about the human rights of the very people it would have to protect).

Unfortunately, lack of independent oversight isn't the only problem here. The chief one is that restricting travel is punishment before the crime. We don't allow the police to lock people up because they "might" commit a crime - you have to do something first. We allow conspiracy charges where there is strong evidence of active plotting, but the police don't even get to take it to court if all they have is vague suspicion or a belief that someone is a "bad person". Why not? Because it would be fundamentally unjust. The bar to allow such an injustice must be very high indeed, and where there is danger of abuse we are better (and in fact have repeatedly chosen) not to take the risk.

Intelligence by its nature deals in uncertainties and probabilities. But if vague fears and paranoia aren't enough to restrict people's freedom after the fact, then there is no way they can justify such restrictions before a crime has even been committed. Suspicion simply is not enough. If the SIS has real evidence that a New Zealander is going to travel overseas for some nefarious purpose, then they can fucking well lay charges (for conspiracy, or fundraising, or membership in a terrorist organisation); if they don't have evidence, or their "evidence" is of the quality so-far demonstrated, then they'll just have to do their job and gather more.

New Fisk

Sunni and Shia share grief at doctor's murder

More worries for Bush

The Polish PM is quitting. While it may not lead to an election, a change of PM or government could lead to a Polish withdrawl from Iraq.

When did we bcome a tyranny?

The government is planning draconian changes to our citizenship and passport laws, including:

• Removing the automatic right of citizenship from babies born in New Zealand to foreign parents.
• Giving the SIS the power to deny or revoke the passports of New Zealand citizens for reasons of "national security".

The first proposal strikes at the heart of what this country is all about. New Zealand has traditionally been a generous, open and welcoming country. Our openness to immigration, tolerance of dual citizenship, and welcoming of refugees and those in need reflect this - as does the general outward-looking viewpoint created by our diaspora. Our position has always been that if you are born here, you're part of the family, no matter who your parents are or where they came from. I don't think this is something we should be changing.

The second is simply horrific - our freedom to travel will depend on the whim of a faceless, unaccountable security agency. The Zaoui case has already exposed the shoddy quality of the "evidence" the SIS uses to justify their decisions, as well as cast significant doubts on the independence and methods of their Inspector-General. Add to that their credulous and subserviant attitude to foreign intelligence agencies and their general lack of democratic oversight, and there is a grave danger of these powers being used against people whose only "crimes" are political, rather than against people who are actively dangerous.

Quite apart from concerns about the competence and motives of the SIS, there is also the fact that this is one of those things that no government can be trusted with. Like imprisonment without trial, restricting movement or stopping people from leaving the country is one of the classic hallmarks of tyranny. The New Zealand government recognised this by including in the Bill of Rights Act 1990 a clause protecting freedom of movement, the right of every New Zealand citizen to enter New Zealand, and the right of everyone to leave. This can be restricted only by such reasonable limits that can be "demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." An SIS veto on our freedom of travel is neither reasonable, free, nor democratic. It should be opposed by anyone who cares at all about human rights.

New Fisk

Slaughter of Iraqi ’collaborators’ undermines US sovereignty hopes
Welcome to Gaddafi's mad, mad world

Go Matt!

Following the effective demise of the Alliance, Matt McCarten went back to organising unions. Through Unite, he's been trying to organise people at the very bottom of the job market - people who are minimum-wage and casualised, like hotel cleaners. Now he's setting his sights on the biggie: fast food.

It will be an interesting shitfight, to say the least. In the US, the fast-food chains are ferociously anti-union; they depend on paying people minimum wage for their profitability. Usually when faced with a unionisation campaign, they just fire anyone who seems sympathetic and threaten to close up shop (and start up again on the opposite side of the street). Because we have actual employment laws in this country, they won't be able to do that. But I expect they'll still fight tooth and nail to resist any attempt to gain a collective agreement.

Anyway, good on Matt for trying, and here's hoping he succeeds.

How do you lose an ICBM?

Ukraine has apparantly lost several hundred ICBMs. They decommisioned them during the 90's after independence, but have no record of them actually being destroyed. Poor record-keeping is the most likely explanation, but you still have to worry. For some reason I'm thinking of the Second-Amendment fundamentalist in Iain Banks' The Business who thought that his "right to bear arms" extended to a couple of Scuds concealed in grain silos..