The legality of cancelling Nazis

The visiting Canadian Nazis were supposed to be speaking in Auckland tonight, but it appears that their venue (or at least, a venue) has cancelled on them at the last minute, apparently after a very quick but persuasive public campaign. While everyone on Twitter is cheering about this, I'm not sure its so good. To point out the obvious, we have a Human Rights Act in this country, which prohibits discrimination in the provision of goods and services such as venue hire. One of the grounds it prohibits such discrimination is "political opinion". Pretty obviously, this means that its illegal for venues to refuse to serve the Labour Party, Unite, Greenpeace, or Tamaki Anti-Fascist Action. But it also means that its illegal for venues to refuse to serve Nazis, at least insofar as Naziism, white supremacy, or simply being a money-grubbing racist arsehat is deemed to be a political opinion.

Are these things "political opinions"? The term isn't defined in the Human Rights Act, and there's no easy caselaw I can find which defines it (at least, not with a quick google). From employment law, we know it applies to being a communist and to protesting against government policy, but there's nothing specific about Nazis. OTOH, these seem to be political views: they're about what policies governments should pursue, how the state should treat its citizens, and what laws it should pass (including, ironicly, laws like the Human Rights Act which protect people from discrimination). If you think that immigration policy is a political issue, that political parties should promote a non-racist society, and that governments should respect human rights, then I think you are hard-pressed to consistently deny that opposing those positions is not also a political position, and one which is therefore deserving of legal protection. Particularly if you also think, as many on the left do, that "everything is political".

Or, to put it another way: if you don't think you should be discriminated against for opposing racism, then you can't support discriminating against racists.

So if you're cheering this, you're an idiot, undermining the very law that protects us all. I don't like Nazis, but I think that that law and our ideal of a non-discriminatory society is more important than them. We should absolutely protest against these scum, and make it clear just how repellent we find their views. But we should not encourage unlawful discrimination while doing so - because that is a weapon which can so easily be turned back on us.

New Fisk

Look closely and you'll see Jared Kushner's cynical ‘deal of the century’ for Palestinians in action

Another bullshit idea

Water is one of the most contentious political issues in the country today. Overextraction is fuelling the polluting dairy industry, while overallocation is pushing the government inexorably towards a traceable permit regime. Meanwhile, the public wants to see foreign water bottlers - and, increasingly, farmers - pay a fair price for their use of a public resource. But solving any of this requires first reaching a settlement with the people who morally own that resource: Māori. Now, the government thinks it finally has a solution. Unfortunately, its another bullshit idea:

Cabinet has been debating the issue ever since and RNZ understands it reached an agreement.

While the government will not pursue any ownership rights for Māori, it will provide capital - most likely through the provincial growth fund - for Māori to develop water storage so they can make better use of under-developed land.

But Ngāpuhi negotiator and senior member of Labour's Māori Council Rudy Taylor said that would not float with iwi.

And no wonder. Compared to the value of the resource, its beads and blankets. But its also something that Federated Farmers wants, not something that iwi want. In the South Island, Ngai Tahu are currently fighting against water storage, because it disturbs their river while encouraging pollution.

I'm boggled that the government would think it was a remotely credible solution. But I guess that's what you're left with when you have NZ First categorically ruling out any real settlement. Which means it'll go to court, and instead of having to give iwi the usual 20% plus co-management (give or take), they may end up having to acknowledge total Māori ownership of freshwater.

ACC's privacy invasion

Last year the Privacy Commissioner ruled that the police practise of asking companies to "voluntarily" turn over information under the Privacy Act was illegal and that they should seek production orders instead. Now, ACC has been caught making the same demands, but to government agencies and for far more sensitive data:

ACC wrongly sought and received nine years worth of personal travel details from Customs after discovering a claimant had gone to the Cannes film festival.

Doing so has uncovered a slew of other cases in which ACC has done the same, raising questions about how it harvests information about people it is meant to be supporting through compensation and rehabilitation.

"I felt violated," said the claimant, astonished to find ACC had turned its casual interest over the Cannes trip into receiving details about every trip abroad since his compensation-related injury.

The corporation has since apologised to the claimant for seeking his travel records and found it has acted wrongly getting other claimants details in about a quarter of the 38 times this year that it used a legal manoeuvre criticised by the Supreme Court and the Privacy Commissioner.

Pretty obviously this is grossly intrusive, and ACC should be paying compensation for its unvasion of privacy. But its not just them we should be looking at, but also Customs, who handed out highly sensitive personal information without good reason. To get an idea of how sensitive that information is, remember that the police and SIS need a specific statutory authorisation to access it, and have been spanked for behaving illegally when that authorisation was ignored or expired. But here Customs was handing it out willy-nilly, essentially so a (government) insurance company could perv through someone's life to try and find a way to not pay out on a claim. Which simply isn't a good enough reason. Like banking records, this information should not be handed out without a production order signed off by a judge. And if ACC can't convince a judge that their concerns of fraud are serious enough to warrant that, then tough.

Ministry of fuckups

I've criticised MPI in the past for being captured by the industries they are supposed to regulate, especially the fishing industry. But it turns out that when MPI does try and prosecute criminal fishers, they fuck it up completely:

An investigation into suspected "large scale fishing fraud" has collapsed following a ruling that a raid involving the Armed Offenders Squad that found evidence stashed in a sewer pipe was illegal.

The Ministry for Primary Industries laid 100 charges under the Fisheries Act based on torn documents found in a sewer breather pipe at the home of Auckland fish dealer Brett Edwards. Also seized was $72,730 cash.

But the charges were dismissed in May after a ruling that the raid was "complete overkill" and a "gross" breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights.

[...]

MPI was found to have ignored the law, been "high-handed", "exceptionally economical with the truth", insensitive or callous towards the target of its investigation and failed to own up to its errors.

Judge Raoul Neave said the conduct suggested that "insufficient attention is paid to ensuring that the enforcement officers are properly schooled as to the way in which they should be exercising their powers".

This is absolutely damning. And its not the half of it. There was illegal detention, unreasonable search and seizure, and lying in a plea-bargain. MPI tries to pass this off as "inexperience", but the Judge is very clear that it was "a deliberate tactic adopted by MPI and not a mistake or misunderstanding". But even if we take MPI's excuses at face value, its looking like they can't be trusted with the search powers they have. And it does raise serious questions about oversight. The police are scrutinised in the use of their powers by the Independent Police Conduct Authority. But who scrutinises MPI?

From the look of this, Edwards is owed significant damages for the abuse of his rights. I hope he sues and wins, because that seems to be the only way to get government ministries to obey the law.

How New Zealand was stolen

Stuff has a major interactive piece today on our history: New Zealand Made is effectively a story of how New Zealadn was stolen. It looks at the Treaty of Waitangi, the way it was systematically breached, and how much land was stolen. There's interactive maps of every Treaty settlement, explaining the government's crimes and the (puny) level of compensation. A subsidiary article looks at the methods the government used to steal Māori land, and its effects.

This is something that should be taught in every New Zealand school, so that we know who we are as a nation and why we need to fix this and make sure it never happens again (instead, we get the Tudors and Stuarts: interesting, but safely irrelevant). If you haven't already, you should check it out.

A colossal waste of money II

How much of a waste of money is the government's decision to blow $2.3 billion on high-tech American sub-hunting aircraft? An OIA request through FYI, the public OIA request site, has shown just how mythical the submarine "threat" actually is: while NZDF's record keeping is typically awful, the last time they say they detected a submarine with the Orions outside of an exercise was in 1998. The last time they detected a non-friendly submarine was in 1989: almost thirty years ago. They apparently haven't even bothered recording it since 2010, though they say that "submarine detections were still being reported orally on occasion".

So, that's how important sub-hunting is to NZDF: not important enough to document or record, but supposedly important enough to spend $2.3 billion on.

New Zealand has a clear need for maritime surveillance aircraft to perform fisheries patrols and search and rescue. But we don't need hi-tech sub-hunters. NZDF openly admits that when they say in their white paper that they can see no immediate threats, and that they expect a decade to rearm if one appears, so there's no need to spend this money now. The additional capability to fight this mythical threat is costing us about a billion dollars, and that's a billion dollars that could be better spent elsewhere at present.

Another crony appointment

The government has appointed former Labour MP Steve Maharey as chair of Pharmac. He's not obviously unqualified for the role, and if he was appointed on his merits via a transparent process in which he was obviously the best candidate, then that would be fine. Sadly, that's not something we can take for granted - Labour seems no better than National in this regard, shoulder-tapping their people and bypassing the usual process to shoehorn them into positions. As for whether that happened here, we'll find out in 20 working days.

Save the Rangitata

The Rangitata river is one of the most sensitive in Canterbury. It is currently subject to a Water Conservation Order, restricting the amount of water that can be taken from it. Despite that, ECan - still dominated by National-appointed dictators to prevent Cantabrians from protecting their water - has approved further takes for irrigation. Now, environmental organisations are appealing:

A "David versus Goliath" battle is looming as a group of anglers gets set to take a major Rangitata River irrigation scheme to the Environment Court

The New Zealand Salmon Anglers Association's appeal is one of three against a decision to grant the Rangitata Diversion Race irrigation scheme consent to take an additional 10 cubic metres of water per second when the river is at high flows. An Environment Canterbury-appointed independent hearings commission granted the consent on July 6.

[...]

According to Ngai Tahu's appeal, "the resource consent will have significant adverse impacts on the mauri of the Rangitata River and hence significant adverse cultural impacts on the appellants", while the decision to grant consent "does not recognise and provide for the relationship of the appellants and their culture and traditions with their ancestral lands, water, sites, wāhi tapu, and other taonga".

Ngai Tahu is seeking to have the decision overturned in full, because the granting of the resource consent "results in uncertainty over potential benefits and mahinga kai opportunities for Te Rūnanga o Arowhenua, and for the ongoing involvement of Te Rūnanga o Arowhenua regarding the use of the water resource".

Good. The purpose of a WCO is to protect a river. But ECan seems to have ignored it in order to enable further pillage by greedy farmers. And the result will be not just an interruption of natural flows, but also more piss and more shit poisoning Canterbury's water.

2,000 employed under Labour

The labour market Statistics have been released, showing a slight rise in unemployment, to 4.5%. The number of unemployed is still down 2,000 from when the government took office, but its basicly treading water. Again, they haven't implemented any real policies to push it down yet - their tweaks to the Reserve Bank Act have only just been introduced to the House, and their KiwiBuild and billion trees programs (which should promote employment) are only just getting started. Hopefully when those policies are implemented, unemployment will drop again to the levels it was at during the Clark era.

Climate change: Uninhabitable

Last year we saw the first suggestion that climate change might make parts of our planet uninhabitable, with a combination of humidity and temperature making some places unsurvivable for more than a few hours. And today, we learn that one of the places where this is most likely to happen is the North China Plain:

The deadliest place on the planet for extreme future heatwaves will be the north China plain, one of the most densely populated regions in the world and the most important food-producing area in the huge nation.

New scientific research shows that humid heatwaves that kill even healthy people within hours will strike the area repeatedly towards the end of the century thanks to climate change, unless there are heavy cuts in carbon emissions.

[...]

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, found fatal WBTs [Wet Bulb Temperatures] of 35C would strike the north China plain repeatedly between 2070 and 2100, unless carbon emissions are cut. Shanghai, for example, would exceed the fatal threshold about five times and the “extreme danger” WBTs would occur hundreds of times. Even if significant carbon cuts are made, the “extreme danger” WBT would be exceeded many times.

Or, to put it another way: climate change is going to cause death on an unimaginable scale, and a significant disruption to China's food supply, with all the flow-on effects that entails. And all of this by the end of the century.

China is already taking climate change seriously, and the threat to food will cause them to take it even more seriously, because they understand the link between food security and regime stability. Hopefully they'll do enough, and convince other large polluters to do enough too. Otherwise, the consequences will be dire.

National supports democracy on drugs

Surprise, surprise! National supports democracy on drugs!

If the public votes in favour of legalising cannabis in a referendum, a National-led government would change the law accordingly, National Party leader Simon Bridges says.

[...]

Mr Bridges said National would enact a law change if that was what New Zealanders wanted.

"Oh I think we've got to, I mean we've got to go with what the people want and what a referendum tells us.

"We've got a bit of water to go under the bridge, we've got to see the question, we're going to have an informed debate I hope on the issues, but absolutely on principle we support referendums and their outcomes."

Compare this to the government's bad-faith approach, where they have explicitly refused to be bound by the results of the vote they themselves have demanded. At the same time we should also remember that National doesn't actually give a shit about democracy and is happy to ignore referenda when they go against the interests of their rich donors and cronies. On this issue, they're simply motivated by a desire to embarrass the government. But the support of useful idiots is still useful, and hopefully it will force the government to do the same thing (or see the election turn into a vote on implementing their referendum).

Class warfare in the USA

The OECD has looked at the wages and conditions of American workers, and called it what it is: outright class warfare:

There’s likely some truth to these narratives [of automation etc]. But a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) offers a more straightforward — and political — explanation: American policymakers have chosen to design an economic system that leaves workers desperate and disempowered, for the sake of directing a higher share of economic growth to bosses and shareholders.

The OECD doesn’t make this argument explicitly. But its report lays waste to the idea that the plight of the American worker can be chalked up to impersonal economic forces, instead of concrete political decisions. If the former were the case, then American laborers wouldn’t be getting a drastically worse deal than their peers in other developed nations. But we are.

And here's the graph which shows it:


[Apparently this is from the 2018 World Inequality Report]

As for what USAians can do about it, very little. Their political system is unique among western democracies in suppressing competition, effectively instituting a two-party oligarchy. There is no peaceful, democratic way to fix it. Which means that the only option for Americans who want a fairer deal is to move to a better country.

(As for New Zealand, as The Spinoff points out, things aren't exactly rosy here - though this is looking at wealth inequality, which is even more extreme than income inequality).

National's corrupt quack schools

National seems to have chosen charter schools as their hill to die on. Their supposed reason for this is that they're "better" than state schools. They're certainly better-funded, because National chose to fund their pet project at several times the usual level in an effort to ensure success. But as for educational quality, it's a different story:

A former student of a Villa Education Trust private school claims creationism was taught as a preferred theory of how the world began in science classes he attended.

The student from Mt Hobson Middle School said Darwinism was taught as an unproven theory and students were shown a video purporting to show science had found proof of God's existence.

His impression was the school backed the concept of creationism “100 percent”.

I think that speaks for itself about the "quality" of these "schools". As for why National funded this quackery, there's this:

The science teacher was Rachel O’Connor, sister of National Party leader Simon Bridges and wife of National MP Simon O’Connor.

So we have millions of dollars of public money wasted to promote the personal quackery of National MPs and ensure jobs for their families. That's not what New Zealanders expect from their government. The sooner these quack schools are shut down, the better.

Contempt for voters

Did you submit on Winston Peters' anti-party-hopping bill? Congratulations, you wasted your time:

National's electoral law spokesman Nick Smith said the justice select committee looking at the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill was unable to consider any amendments nor get any advice from officials on key issues.

"Government MPs simply stated the bill had to be reported back to the House unamended to meet the demands of Winston Peters," Smith said.

"Not a single submission supported the bill without amendment yet the Government insisted it be progressed as is. The Ministry of Justice would not provide any views on the bill and simply stated it was government policy to pass it unamended," he said in a statement.

This displays an absolute contempt for voters, not to mention bad faith. If they weren't willing to consider amendments, why did they even bother asking for submissions? It would have been more honest to say "we're passing this, fuck you" from the outset - at least that way all those people wouldn't have wasted their time.

Shit like this is why I simply don't bother submitting on legislation anymore. The pricks in Parliament simply aren't interested in our views on anything that matters, and pretending that they are simply legitimises their charade. Better not to waste your time on their bullshit.

And of course, I'm a lot less comfortable about the Greens supporting the bill given this information. There's holding your nose, and then there's being complicit in an abuse of democracy. If Winston wants to force them to vote for this bullshit, he should at least have the decency to be open about it, and make it a matter of confidence so that everyone can see who is pulling the strings.

The reality of Brexit II

Last week the UK government was promising that there woudl be "adequete food supplies" after Brexit. Since then, a number of commentators have highlighted the reality of just-in-time inventory systems and basicly said that it can't be done - that a hard Brexit which disrupts trade will mean a food crisis. But don't worry! The government promises the army will solve the problem!

The military would be called in if blockages at ports after Britain leaves the EU led to shortages in supplies, ministers told the Sunday Times.

Blueprints usually reserved for civil emergencies have been included as part of the “no deal” planning, the newspaper reported.

Helicopters and army trucks could be used to carry medicine to vulnerable people outside the south-east.

A Ministry of Defence source told the Sunday Times that "no formal request" to supply aid had been received but said the department has "a blueprint for us supporting the civilian authorities that can be dusted off".

Except that the real problem they're likely being called in for isn't food distribution - which requires that there actually be food to distribute - but the resulting anger and civil disorder as it becomes apparent that the toff government has sold its people into starvation while they sip champagne in their bolt-holes. The no-deal Brexit that Rees-Mogg and his fellow rich pricks are betting on is also an invitation for a police state.

Not TOP-less?

It looks like TOP might not be dead after all:

The Opportunities Party board has put on hold plans to de-register the party while it considers expressions of interest from a number of people interested in forming a "political party with principles", founder Gareth Morgan says.

[...]

"My July 16 invitation to anyone interested to 'form a political party with principles' has garnered many expressions of interest, including some pretty compelling ones from members of The Opportunities Party.

"That has led the TOP Board to put on hold our plans to de-register the party and give us time to evaluate the offers. I have to say that at this time it is looking pretty good and we expect to make an announcement in August."

So maybe they'll stick around after all. And hopefully in the process they'll move past Morgan, because his lack of patience and constant slagging off of voters are the party's biggest problems. If they want to actually change things, they need to become less of a vanity vehicle and more of a real party.

Improving the OIA

The New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties has released a proposal for a better Official Information Act, outlining the changes they'd like to see made. the key ones:

• Shifting oversight from the Ombudsman to a specialist Open Government Commission;
  
• Extending the Act to cover Parliament, state-controlled companies, the IPCA, the Ombudsman, and various other bodies currently excluded, as well as fully covering government contractors;
  
• Introducing daily fines for delays, and criminal penalties for deliberate obstruction;
  
• Firewalling Ministers from agency requests to prevent political interference;
  
• Requiring proactive publication and accessible formats
  

These are all good proposals, and if the government won't commit to updating the Act, they can be implemented piecemeal. Hopefully the NZCCL will be looking for backbenchers to implement some of these reforms as members' bills.

As for why the NZCCL is interested in this, its because oversight and accountability are key to democracy, and key to protecting people's rights. The government's foot-dragging on transparency is a human rights issue, and one it needs to act on.

Something to go to in Auckland

Live in Auckland? Don't like Nazis? Turn out to show that Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux aren't welcome in Aotearoa.

And this is how we should deal with their sad little travelling racist uncle show: not with censorship and bans, but with protests. The answer to speech you don't like is more speech, not less.

NZPAM vs the government

Earlier this month, New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals opened up two large areas of the South Island for prospecting. Shockingly, the areas contained a large amount of conservation land, and included national parks and conservation areas listed in Schedule 4, in which no mining is possible. And this was done in advance of a clearly-signalled policy from the government to ban mining on conservation land.

Obviously, there are some serious questions to be asked here, such as "why is NZPAM attempting to undermine and sabotage government policy". Because sabotage is what it is. While mining lobbyists Straterra say "its only prospecting", they are being deliberately disingenuous. Because each permit, unless it expressly specifies otherwise, includes a statutory right to upgrade it if anything interesting is found. A prospecting permit, allowing only aerial surveying and hand sampling, can be upgraded as of right to an exploration permit, allowing drilling and excavation. And that in turn can be upgraded as of right to a mining permit. And there's a real danger that this process will be used to circumvent the ban by the back door. Straterra knows this, so when they tell you "it's only prospecting", they're lying to your faces and treating you like a fool.

As for why NZPAM is doing this, it was obvious from their advice on the offshore drilling ban that they're totally captured by the industry they are supposed to regulate, just as MPI is captured by the fishing and farming industries. Plus of course if there's less mining, then there's less need for NZPAM staff to regulate it, and they can be safely cut. So again, this is about NZPAM protecting their own jobs by promoting the destruction of our environment.

As for how to fix this, the Minister needs to make it fucking clear to all applicants that no permit issued over conservation land in these areas will be upgradeable as of right. And then she needs to wade in there with fire and sword and purge and restructure NZPAM until it implements the policy of the democraticly elected government. Because it is simply unacceptable for any government department to enact its own policy in this manner, and industry-captured agencies need to learn who they actually work for.