Friday, November 29, 2024



Police: "It's OK if you're a cop"

Imagine you want to buy some guns, but you want to hide the fact from someone. So you abuse your access privileges to obtain the details of a registered owner, then use them to fraudulently register the weapons. If you or I did this, we'd obviously be going to jail. But apparently it's OK if you're a cop:

The South Island police officer was investigated after allegations surfaced that he illegally acquired firearms and concealed the purchases by registering them under false names.

He registered firearms under the names of innocent licensed firearm owners, intending to deceive the gun sellers and Te Tari Pūreke – Firearms Safety Authority.

[...]

The allegations were initially investigated by the police, who concluded the officer had not committed any criminal offences.

Police accepted the officer’s explanation that he used third-party names to acquire firearms to avoid conflict with his wife.

As a result, they found no grounds to proceed with either criminal charges or disciplinary action.

The IPCA disagrees. But they're a toothless sham, who don't get to make prosecution decisions, so the cop gets away with it. And to add insult to injury, he got to keep his firearms licence, despite clearly not being a fit and proper person to enjoy such trust.

This is just the ordinary, everyday corruption of a police force which sees itself as being above the laws they enforce on us peasants. Its the corruption of a police force which behaves essentially exactly like a criminal gang. And its not acceptable. Crime is not OK if you're a cop. And if the police refuse to understand that, then we should fire them all and get some honest ones instead.

Another day, another breach of te Tiriti

Back in February, the National government disestablished Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority. It was a revolting breach of te Tiriti, but the government avoided a formal ruling of that by rushing the legislation into the House specifically to deprive the Waitangi Tribunal of jurisdiction and kill its inquiry into the matter. But that only delayed the inevitable - the Tribunal's jurisdiction was restored the moment the law was passed, and they've now produced a formal report, Hautupua, finding that the government pissed all over te Tiriti and its principles:

After assessing the evidence presented from parties, the Tribunal found breaches of te Tiriti/the Treaty principles of tino rangatiratanga, good government, partnership – including the duties of consultation and acting reasonably and in good faith – active protection, and redress.

The Tribunal found that the policy process the Crown followed to disestablish Te Aka Whai Ora was a departure from conventional and responsible policymaking in several concerning ways. The Crown did not act in good faith when disestablishing Te Aka Whai Ora as it did not consult or engage with Māori, nor did it gather substantive advice from officials. Consequently, the Crown made the ill-informed decision that Te Aka Whai Ora was not required, despite knowledge of grave Māori health inequities. The Tribunal found that Māori did not agree with the Crown’s decisions but were denied the right to self-determine what is best for them and hauora Māori. Instead, the Crown implemented its own agenda – one that was based on political ideology, rather than evidence, and one that fell well short of a Tiriti/Treaty consistent process. It did so without following its own process for the development and implementation of legislative reform.

The Tribunal stated that Te Aka Whai Ora was an integral part of a system responsible for the equitable delivery of health care and services in Aotearoa New Zealand and gave effect to the Crown’s Tiriti/Treaty obligations. The Crown could have left Te Aka Whai Ora in place until it had a replacement, but instead it chose to disestablish it in haste. Te Aka Whai Ora was previously established by the Crown to provide redress for the long-standing failure by the Crown to reflect tino rangatiratanga in our health system. The Crown’s unilateral decision to remove Te Aka Whai Ora had effectively taken that redress away.

The later is important. The creation of Te Aka Whai Ora was effectively a Treaty settlement, aimed at undoing the damage caused by the systematically racist colonial health system. National has effectively unilaterally repealed that settlement. And that has implications for the whole settlement process, as well as the sustainability of existing settlements. Because pretty obviously, if a settlement is only a settlement until a racist government decides to steal it from you again, then its not really a settlement, is it? And its certainly not in any way "full and final", no matter what that government's laws may say.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering: has this government already achieved the dubious distinction of having the highest number of modern Treaty breaches? Because they certainly seem to be treating that as a goal to be achieved in their hundred day plans, rather than something to be avoided.

Thursday, November 28, 2024



The law means something

Former Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson has been convicted of violating his duty to run a safe workplace over the death of one of his workers:

In a judgement released today, Judge Steve Bonnar found Gibson was guilty of one charge raised under the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA); the charge that alleged Gibson had failed to comply with his duty under the act to exercise due diligence, and therefore exposed the port workers to a risk of death or serious injury.

In the 146 page judgment, Bonnar concluded that Gibson was "ultimately responsible for health and safety" and he was required to exercise systems leadership. He ruled Gibson should have been aware of the need for improvement of the monitoring of the night shift, but that in failing to address associated shortfalls failed in his duty.

"I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Gibson's breach of his duty ... made it materially more likely that POAL would breach its duty of care to ensure that stevedores were not exposed to the risk of death or serious harm. His failure thereby exposed the stevedores to the risk of death or serious harm by being struck by objects from operating cranes."

Good. This is how the law is meant to work. Chief executives need to be strongly incentivised to run a safe workplace and not cut corners, and strict personal liability is the way to do that. And I'm glad that the law has passed its first test.

The question now is whether National will repeal it to protect their cronies from the consequences of their criminal behaviour.

Wednesday, November 27, 2024



Secrecy destroys trust: the case of the nuclear waste dump

Something I was not expecting to learn this morning: the government has built a secret nuclear waste dump in rural Manawatu:

A facility for storing all of New Zealand’s radioactive waste has been secretly built near Palmerston North, in a decision neighbouring farmers have called “horrifying” and “deceptive”.

The building, surrounded by a 2.5m-high fence, padlocked gates and CCTV, has been constructed next to New Zealand Defence Force communication dishes in rural Manawatū. The facility sits on Defence Force land – part of which was redesignated by the Health Ministry. The Health Ministry said the facility stores low-level and intermediate-level waste, such as redundant radiation devices for treating cancer patients.

[...]

New Zealand’s national storage facility neighbours prime Manawatū farmland, but residents were not informed of the building plans which were kept secret at the request of government officials.

The story is buried behind the Herald's paywall, but there's also a video version here. The video version carefully blanks out all the addresses, but the site is east of Ohakea, by the corner of Wilson and Ngaio Rd, and you can see it on Google maps here.

Is it safe? I don't see any reason to doubt it. But the government arrogantly didn't want to even make that argument, preferring to hide behind a bogus veil of "national security" to avoid objections. By doing so, they subverted the normal RMA process of having to respond to and mitigate concerns - which in this case would largely mean explaining the inverse square law, their monitoring and risk-management processes. And they prevented the RMA safeguard of having an independent, fair, and transparent appeals process to manage disagreements. I have no doubt that the government would have gained resource consent if they had done this openly.

Instead, they chose to do it in secret. And by doing that, they've made it look like they have something to hide. Because if it is safe, they would have just been open about it, right? It's a perfect example of how secrecy destroys trust, as well as a basic failure of democratic norms. And the government deserves every bit of the suspicion it is now going to get for this.

The lesson here for the government should be obvious: don't do things in secret unless you really, absolutely have to. Sadly, they'll probably take the opposite one, double down on secrecy, and try to punish its exposure. And then they'll wonder why trust in government is declining...

Tuesday, November 26, 2024



Government by google

In this year's Budget, cancer Minister Casey Costello gave Philip Morris a $216 million tax cut for their heated tobacco products, on the basis of "independent advice" which contradicted that produced by the Ministry of health. When she finally produced this "independent advice", it did not support her case at all, and looked like a collection of random shit she had found on google while "doing her own research". Now someone using FYI, the free OIA request tool, has finally force Costello to admit where her advice came from. And the answer is exactly what you thought it would be:

Costello-DYOR

Which is I guess the flip side of National's public service cuts: Ministers who think they can just google shit up instead (and a Prime Minister and Cabinet who accept this).

Whether this meets the standards of competence and professionalism we expect from Ministers and which supposedly justify their enormous salaries is left as an exercise for the reader.

Will Luxon let ACT privatise the health system?

The racist piece of shit government is a year old this week, so there's a bunch of retrospectives and looking forwards and so on. Today it was Rimmer's turn - and in addition to gloating about how he's setting the policy agenda and making all the decisions, and about his racist attempt to repeal te Tiriti, he also dropped this:

And while it's not yet December he's already turning his mind to ideas ACT might push next year, hinting privatising the healthcare system would be one of them.

Seymour said a conversation about the future of the health system was needed as it was not working as is.

Of course, the sole reason it is not working is because of government underfunding, because small-government weirdos like Rimmer have been slowly drowning it in the bathtub.

We know what a privatised health system looks like: America, where any health problem costs you everything and drives you bankrupt. Rimmer may think that's a great idea (MPs get their health insurance subsidised, just so they're not in the same boat as the rest of us). But kiwis do not want to live like that. Not even National voters want to live like that. The question is will Luxon recognise this, or will he let Rimmer destroy our health system (and his government), the same way that he's letting him destroy our constitution and social cohesion?

Friday, November 22, 2024



Justice in Brazil

Following the 2022 Brazilian general election, election loser Jair Bolsonaro tried to do a Trump, attempting a coup to overturn the election. It failed. But unlike his American friend, he hasn't been allowed to get away with it:

The former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and some of his closest allies are among dozens of people formally accused by federal police of being part of a criminal conspiracy designed to obliterate Brazil’s democratic system through a rightwing coup d’état.

Federal police confirmed on Thursday that investigators had concluded their long-running investigation into what they called a coordinated attempt to “violently dismantle the constitutional state”.

In a statement, police said the report – which has been forwarded to the supreme court – formally accused a total of 37 people of crimes including involvement in an attempted coup, the formation of a criminal organization, and trying to tear down one of the world’s largest democracies.

Prosecutions are likely to follow.

The contrast with America couldn't be clearer. There, the federal government dragged its feet on prosecuting Trump for insurrection, he was allowed to stand for re-election despite clear constitutional language forbidding it, and the US people then voted for him. Its an appalling indictement of the US's ramshackle "democracy" and of the state of the rule of law in that country.

(Meanwhile, in other good news, the ICC has finally issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant. Which invites the obvious question: when will our government be imposing sanctions against these war criminals and their genocidal regime?)

Thursday, November 21, 2024



Drawn

A ballot for one member's bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn:

  • KiwiSaver (Guardian Consent) Amendment Bill (Jan Tinetti)

Its a minor bill, which would make it easier for single parents to opt children into Kiwisaver. The question is, will National vote it down out of pure spite?

The IPCA has failed

Back in 2022, RNZ took an in-depth look at the "Independent" Police Conduct Authority and its handling of killings by police. These are the most serious test of oversight, and you would expect the police's use of lethal force to receive the most severe scrutiny. But despite the police regularly shooting people in the back, or when they are unarmed, or when they clearly have mental health issues, the IPCA had never found a killing by police to be unjustified. That changed today, with the IPCA's release of its report into the police killing of Kaoss Price. But despite finding that the killing was unjustified, and so unlawful, the IPCA recommends that the killer face no consequences whatsoever:

The Independent Police Conduct Authority has issued a rare ruling that a fatal shooting by a police officer was not justified in a new report that details the final moments of Taranaki’s Kaoss Price.

But it has also said it does not recommend a prosecution of the officer who fired the fatal shot.

The report says: “We found that the fatal shot was excessive force on the balance of probabilities, but we do not recommend police lay criminal charges or commence an employment process against the officer.

“While excessive use of force constitutes serious misconduct under the Police Code of Conduct, in the circumstances of this case, we do not recommend police commence an employment process.”

And there you have it: the police can officially kill you, unlawfully and without justification, and face no consequences - not even employment ones. They can literally get away with murder. Coming on the same day that the new "I don’t talk about policing by consent" police commissioner is expressing his enthusiasm for a gun on every hip, and the same day that the police's own research finds them behaving in a discriminatory, dehumanising, abusive, and likely criminal way towards gang members and peopel they see as "unworthy" victims, its a bit fucking on the nose. And I think the public are entitled to ask whether an armed police force which behaves no different from a criminal gang, which is apparently legally entitled to abuse and even kill us with absolute impunity is worth having, or if they're a bigger problem than the ones they're meant to be solving.

One thing is crystal clear: an IPCA which excuses unlawful killing like this is not worth having. It is a fraud on the New Zealand public. An "oversight" body which does not effectively provide oversight, consequences, and (most importantly) result in institutional behavioural change is worthless. All it does it launder the reputation of the police, and prevent the accountability and change we need to see. And we are better off living honestly, with the knowledge that the police are an unaccountable criminal institution, than with that scam.

Wednesday, November 20, 2024



The end of policing by consent

National has appointed a new police commissioner. And he explicitly rejects policing by consent:

Asked if he subscribed to policing by consent, he said he did not.

“I don’t talk about policing by consent. I talk about trust and confidence, and it is fundamentally important that the police have the trust and confidence of the public, and we’ve got some work to do at the moment.”

And just like that, nearly two hundred years of core police culture has been tossed out, in favour of an American model evolved from slave patrols and based on subjugating the population by force - everything that Peel opposed. Which is precisely why trust and confidence has plummeted.

As for the consequences, Peel rightly recognised that the cooperation of the public was essential for the police to be able to do their job. Now the police have abandoned that, I guess they can try doing that job without that cooperation - and see how far it gets them.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day, and a significant one: it should finally see the passage of Teanau Tuiono's Citizenship (Western Samoa) (Restoration) Amendment Bill. While the bill is an ugly compromise which is a long way from proper redress for the government's past crimes (oh that's a familiar story), it will help, and I will be glad to see it pass.

With the main event out of the way, there will be the committee stage of Rima Nakhle's Corrections (Victim Protection) Amendment Bill, followed by the first readings of Julie Anne Genter's Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill and Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill. If the House moves quickly, it may make a start on Catherine Wedd's Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill. There should be a ballot for two bills tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 19, 2024



Submit to defend te Tiriti!

The Justice Committee has called for submissions on National's racist and constitutionally radical Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill. Submissions can be made at the link above or by post, and are due by Tuesday, 7 January 2025. But I'd get in quick, in case National grows a spine and shortens the select committee period.

There are already template submissions floating around for this bill. Please don't use them. As people who have worked inside the sausage factory have pointed out, form and template submissions are grouped and ignored. You will have more impact and be more effective if you write your own. It does not have to be long, just a few sentences: who you are, your top reason(s) why you oppose the bill, and a request to appear before the committee (if you want to do that - and remember, it can be done by phone or zoom). If someone else - a big NGO, say - says something you agree with, then saying "I support the submission of [X]" (optionally, "on [issue Y]") is good - but make sure to also say something in your own words. Don't just crib and rearrange their language, because it is very obvious, and then your submission goes in the template bucket.

[This BTW is why I stopped posting my submissions here: people were just copy-pasting them, which undermined my impact and theirs]

There are many, many critiques of this bill which you can mine for ammunition. The Waitangi Tribunal reports, politicians' first-reading speeches, Helmut Modlik, Ngati Toa, senior lawyers, Geoffrey Palmer, Chris Finlayson, even Jenny fucking Shipley. You can pick one problem, try and cover them all, or just go with the general vibe that this bill misrepresents our history and would be (in the words of the waitangi Tribunal) "worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty/te Tiriti in modern times". Just be polite, be brief, and above all, resist the temptation to tell the politicians what complete arsehats vandals they are for even considering this piece of shit law. (This is always the hardest bit for me. Submission voice is different from blog voice is different from Kikorangi voice...)

Rimmer will be looking for a big show of astroturfed support from Hobson's Pledge. It's our job to outnumber them, to bury them in opposition. The marchers showed that today with the hikoi (which is now being estimated at 40 or 50 thousand, with some estimates in the 80's); time to show it at select committee as well.

The hikoi

Like everyone else (everyone who wasn't there, anyway), I've spent the morning watching the hikoi march on Parliament. The pictures are astounding: parliament grounds and the surrounding streets are full, and there are still people backed up along Lambton Quay. The police are estimating 35,000 people, and that's a floor rather than a ceiling.

The challenge this poses to the National government is clear. Faced with a crowd half this size at the foreshore and seabed hikoi in 2004, Helen Clark infamously dismissed them as "haters and wreckers". Labour lost the Māori seats as a result, and Clark was denied a majority, forcing her into the arms of NZ First for her last lame duck term. And while ACT's racist hardliners will say that no-one outside parliament today will be voting National, no, they won't be - not any more. But its also not just them. For everyone marching today, there are ten or more who don't live in Wellington and couldn't make it and who think that National's bill is an atrocity. And they're not all on the left. When people like Chris Finlayson and Jenny fucking Shipley are denouncing your bill as divisive and "inviting civil war", then its a sign that you've lost even the most boring of conservatives. Which is what happens when you attack the very foundations on which our state is built.

So what should National do? Simple: kill the bill, and quickly. Don't let Rimmer have his six month racist hate-fest of a select committee process; instead cut it short, vote it down, and tell Rimmer to go fuck himself. And if he threatens the government's confidence, then tell him to bring it on - because National is likely to do better out of an early election in those circumstances than it would otherwise.

But I think we all know that mediocre manager man Chris Luxon is too spineless and chickenshit to do anything. The man never stood up for anything in his life, beyond his own aggrandisement. And sadly, he's unlikely to start now.

Friday, November 15, 2024



More lawlessness from National

On Tuesday, sick of government stonewalling, the Waitangi Tribunal issued a rare court order, ordering the Minister of Health to release unredacted documents within 48 hours showing its reasoning for disestablishing Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority. The government's response to the lawful order of a court? Yeah, nah:

The Health Ministry has only partially adhered to a Waitangi Tribunal order for unredacted information regarding the closure of Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority.

[...]

A Ministry of Health spokesperson confirmed it released a number of documents on Thursday night, but asked for more for “consultation” before releasing the remaining documents.

There's a name for this: contempt. And as a standing commission of inquiry, the Tribunal has the power to punish it. And they should. While the penalty of a $1000 fine is derisory, Ministers need to learn that they are not above the law. And the shame of a conviction might focus his mind on proper comity towards the judiciary.

Of course, instead Ministers are again threatening to "reform" the Tribunal. Which sounds like a classic case of perversion of the course of justice to me.

National's tyrannical "foreign interference" law

Yesterday, under cover the the biggest political fight of the year, National quietly - covertly, even - introduced anti-foreign interference legislation. The bill is the product of a years-long work-program aimed at countering shit like this and this, and there's unquestionably a need to do something to counter foreign states' attacks on the democratic rights of kiwis. Unfortunately, the government's preferred solution - the creation of two very vague new criminal offences - goes too far, and will criminalise basic democratic activity such as protests. And under a straight and direct reading of the law, it would have criminalised most of our historic protest movements.

Much of the bill is unproblematic, if a bit weird. Tweaking the law of parties in relation to espionage offences to fill a gap? Fine. Changing existing offences around wrongful retention and corrupt use of official information to refer to "relevant information" instead so as to cover bodies excluded from the OIA? Fine, but there was another solution to that - include those bodies! - which of course the government didn't even consider. Amend the definition of "information" so that it "includes information about military tactics, techniques, or procedures"? Weird status-driven flex, but as those things are information and so already included in the definition, harmless as well as pointless. And the new offence of "commission of imprisonable offence to provide relevant benefit to foreign power" seems to target exactly the sort of problems linked to above, and not be problematic (it may be pointless, because foreign agents won't be deterred in the slightest by it, but the existence of the law isn't a problem).

The problem lies in new section 78AAA, improper conduct for or on behalf of foreign power. This makes it an offence to engage in improper conduct for or on behalf of a foreign power when you know (or in the government's opinion, ought to know) that you are acting on behalf of a foreign power, with the intention of or being reckless as to whether it compromises a "protected New Zealand interest". If that sounds vague, it gets worse when you start unpacking the definitions:

  • "Foreign power" means essentially a government or agency, so that at least is OK. Neither the UN or Amnesty International are "foreign powers" in terms of the law. But...
  • "acting for or on behalf of a foreign power" includes doing things that are merely "instigated by" or "with the agreement of" a foreign power. Does the government believe that all protest stems from nefarious foreign actions? Did a foreign PM give your protest photo a "like" on Facebook? Congratulations, you a criminal! (more on this later);
  • "protected New Zealand interests" include not just important things like lives and public safety, the functioning of our elections and government and the democratic and human rights of our citizens, but also state bullshit like "international relations" and (more worryingly) "the economic well-being of New Zealand". Does your protest offend a foreign government, or a powerful industry lobby group? You're compromising those interests, and a potential criminal.
  • "improper conduct" isn't just criminal or corrupt (indeed, actual crime seems not to be part of its definition at all), but instead conduct which is "covert", "deceptive", or "coercive". And here's where it gets nasty, because the Regulatory Impact Statement implies that merely holding confidential meetings or using encrypted communications falls within the definition of "covert" (and its excuse is that its not a problem because usually "the purpose of the activity is not to harm designated interests"). Do anything without inviting the police or SIS or narks to spy on you and read all your stuff? Covert! "Deceptive" means hiding or obfuscating consequences, or lying, or even "omitting any material particular"; what's a lie or an omission is of course entirely in the eyes of the state here, but the scope there seems very broad. Writing anonymously or under a pseudonym is absolutely covered. And "coercive" includes not just intimidation and threats, but also "enabling the denial or restriction of access to property or services that another person would otherwise be entitled to access". Did a fragile white incel feel "threatened" by your protest? Was someone late to work? Congratulations, it's coercive!

The latter point of course covers a huge swathe of legitimate democratic protest. Occupations and blockades are a normal part of the push and shove of democratic society. This law would define them as "coercive".

But wouldn't they only be illegal if they compromised protected New Zealand interests on behalf of a foreign power? As noted above, those interests include "international relations" and "economic wellbeing", while links to a foreign power can be highly tenuous. We've seen protests blockade streets and buildings, occupy land, ships and oil rigs, and the targets of those protests - the dairy, oil, and weapons industries - have all claimed that it threatens "economc wellbeing" (they've even called it "economic treason"). And the government and SIS of the day have slandered virtually every major protest movement in our history - the union movement, the anti-war movement, the anti-apartheid movement, the anti-nuclear movement - as a tool of foreign interests.

Essentially, this law allows the government to criminalise people based on its own misconceptions, conspiracy theories, and outright fantasies of their motivations (and its belief that we "ought to know" about their weirdo fantasies). It would have allowed Muldoon to jail John Minto and all of HART for 14 years for being foreign agents. It would have allowed them to jail every anti-nuclear protestor who blocked a street or rowed a canoe in front of a ship, and everyone who wrote a letter to the editor under a false name advocating against nuclear ship visits. It potentially - depending on what weird fantasies the SIS and Federated Farmers have - allows them to jail every member of the climate, environmental, and indigenous rights movements.

This is massive over-reach. And it being done in the name of "protecting" our rights adds insult to injury. As noted above, foreign interference is a threat. But the real threat here seems to be our own government, and its contempt for basic democratic rights.

Can this bill be saved? Removing s78AAA entirely would fix it. Alternatively, it could have an "avoidance of doubt" clause protecting protest, advocacy, dissent, and strikes, as used in the Terrorism Suppression Act might work. But I suspect that the government would view that as undercutting the core purpose of the bill: an all-encompassing criminalisation clause, with no loopholes for foreign agents to wriggle through. The problem is that that purpose criminalises us. And while the government will no doubt say "trust us, we wouldn't prosecute you", their record on this shows that they simply cannot be trusted. This law needs to be gutted. And any MP who votes for it in its present state needs to be voted out on their arse.

Thursday, November 14, 2024



D-day for the government

The government's Treaty Principles Bill is up for its first reading today - bought forward in a rush in a desperate effort to avoid the hikoi which is currently marching on Wellington. But the Prime Minister won’t be there for it – he’s literally running away to Peru! But he took the opportunity to denounce his bill as he was fleeing:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has given a scathing appraisal of the Treaty Principles Bill on the day of its first reading, saying the legislation has been unhelpful to his mission of getting the country back on track.

[...]

Luxon will miss the parliamentary debate - enroute to Peru for the APEC summit instead - but he called a morning media conference where he criticised the legislation in perhaps his strongest words yet.

"You do not go negate, with a single stroke of a pen, 184 years of debate and discussion, with a bill that I think is very simplistic."

Luxon is clearly unhappy with his bill sucking all the oxygen out of his government. But he knows the solution to that: he can vote it down today - or just encourage 6 National MPs to "rebel" and do so. Either would be nuclear for his coalition - but so clearly is supporting the bill. National is going to bleed and bleed over this, and even if Rimmer lets them vote it down when it gets out of committee in six months, the stench of having supported it in the first place isn't going to go away. National will bear the taint of being the racist party which tried to destroy our constitutional foundations. And that's something which is going to be impossible to live down.

Luxon could end all that today. But he won't, because he's a chickenshit, too cowardly even to face up to what he has agreed to. As for the National Party, by supporting this they will make it clear that there is no such thing as a "good Nat" - they're all racists, all the way down. And we should not let them escape that judgement.

(And for people who want to nitpick and say that this isn’t Luxon’s bill: he agreed to it, so he owns it. MMP may mean coalitions, but it does not mean you can escape responsibility for your choices.)

Wednesday, November 13, 2024



Injustice for torture

Between 1950 and 1993 the New Zealand government tortured and abused up to 250,000 children in residential care facilities. Yesterday, following formal findings from a royal commission, it finally apologised for that abuse. The next step is redress and restitution - compensating the surviving victims for the appalling harm they have suffered. But it turns out that maybe not every victim is going to get compensated, with the government refusing to say if it plans to exclude gang members:

Asked on Wednesday whether gang members would be eligible for redress, the relevant minister, Erica Stanford, declined to say.

"I have not made any decisions and neither has Cabinet. All of these things have to go to Cabinet," Stanford said.

"I'm not going to tell you today what's in and what's out and how much, because we haven't made any of those decisions yet."

Pressed again, Stanford said the question of whether gang members would be eligible was "one of the things that we have to be looking at".

So, they're considering it (and the fact that she refuses to say and hides behind cabinet confidentiality tells us that). So the position of at least some parties in this government is that the government can torture and abuse people, ruin their lives, and that if it decides it doesn't like you, they can refuse to compensate you. That is unjust. it is indecent. And it makes a total mockery of yesterday's "apology".

As the royal commission found, "Gangs provided survivors with the care (that is, attachment and belonging) and protection that state and faith-based institutions should have given." If abuse victims turned to gangs as a response to abuse, that seems to be the government's fault; and maybe it neds to think about compensating those institutions for the care they gave, and that the government did not.

Tuesday, November 12, 2024



Jagose doesn't get it

The government held a formal apology ceremony this morning to victims of child torture and abuse-in-care. One of those "apologising" was Solicitor-General Una Jagose, who had played a key role in devising and implementing the government's legal strategy of aggressively minimising its liabilities, slandering its victims, and waiting for them to die. Was she actually sorry for this? Of course not! - her "apology" was a masterclass in minimisation, diversion, and misdirection - and it was greeted with a chorus of boos and heckling as a result. And when she was questioned about this afterwards [in liveblog, at 12:04PM], it was clear that she didn't get it:

Solicitor-General Una Jagose said she understood the reaction she received from survivors at this morning's event.

Jagose was met with boos and calls for her resignation, as she delivered the apology on behalf of Crown Law.

"I understand that wero, and I understand people see the lawyer that acts on government instruction and takes cases defending governments as the person in the way. So I understand why I might be seen as the barrier."

So, it's "befehl ist befehl". She was "only following orders". Except that she wasn't some passive tool here - she was devising and recommending the very legal strategy she is hiding behind. her pretending to be a victim flies in the face of both the Royal Commission's findings, and common decency. But I guess you don't get to be a top government lawyer by having any of that, do you?

Jagose is fundamentally tainted by this.If she doesn't have the decency to resign, then she needs to be sacked. And if the government refuses to do so, then they can bear the taint of publicly protecting her.

Monday, November 11, 2024



National suppresses the media

The government is doing its formal apology to victims of abuse-in-care at Parliament tomorrow, along with introducing a (still secret) bill addressing restitution. It will obviously be a big media event. But Newsroom's Aaron Smale, a journalist who has played a key role in exposing crown failure and wrongdoing in this saga, will not be welcome:

Parliament’s Speaker has barred leading investigative journalist Aaron Smale from attending the official Crown apology at Parliament to victims of abuse in state care.

Smale, who has covered for eight years the abuse of children and others in state institutions, and the Crown’s legal strategy to exhaust survivors legally to save money and reputations, will not be accredited to report for Newsroom on Tuesday when the apology is made.

The decision has offended one prominent abuse survivor, known as Earl White, who says: “It is a disgrace that the Government is penalising someone who uncovered the fact that so many people in power covered up sexual abuse like my own.”

Smale had apparently offended National ministers by asking extremely pointed questions about whether Attorney-General Judith Collins and Solicitor-General Una Jagose would be held accountable for their role in the coverup, as well as whether they understood the link between abuse-in-care and the formation of gangs. So they got their rubberstamp Speaker to ban him. It's an outright case of media suppression, another example of the government's contempt for democracy and its fear of being held to account. But that's apparently how this government governs now.

So, if you see a National MP on the street: ask them: why did they ban Smale? And if they don't answer, ask them again. Don't let them escape the basic accountability we all expect in a democracy.

Thursday, November 07, 2024



Climate Change: Raising the bar

One of the obligations of the Paris Climate Change Agreement is for every country to set a "Nationally Determined Contribution" - an NDC - of emissions cuts. The Key government initially set an unambitious NDC of a 30% cut (from 2005 levels) by 2030. The Ardern government later increased this to 50%, reflecting the need for greater ambition as well as greater opportunities for reductions. Unfortunately, they both expected to rely on "offshore mitigation" to meet a big chunk of those commitments - paying someone else to reduce emissions instead of reducing them ourselves, at huge expense (which makes you wonder whether we shouldn't just spend that money cutting emissions here...).

The Paris Agreement also requires parties to update those NDCs with more ambitious ones every five years. So the government asked He Pou a Rangi what it could realistically achieve domestically, as a factor in its decision. The Commission has reported back today, and based on its modelling, found that:

it would be feasible to achieve greater net emissions reductions in the NDC2 period (2031–2035) than the NDC1 commitment, through domestic action alone.
Depending on whether its set as a point or budget target, He Pou a Rangi's central scenario is for a 55% to 60% emissions cut from domestic action, with ambitious policy able to push that to 70% to 75%. So that's where NDC2 is going to have to start, with any contribution through offshore mitigation adding to that. And given that the current level of that is 15% to 20%, it looks like our overall target should be in the range of a 70% to 80% cut from 2005 levels - at least if we are to be consistent with our 2021 target.

The climate-denier coalition isn't going to want to do this. But other countries - and in particular, the EU, which has a climate clause in their FTA with us - have expectations. And maybe they'll just agree to it because it will be Somebody Else's Problem. And if they don't, and set a weak target, the next government can always simply raise it.

Drawn

A ballot for two Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn:

  • Employment Relations (Termination of Employment by Agreement) Amendment Bill (Laura Trask)
  • Copyright (Parody and Satire) Amendment Bill (Kahurangi Carter)

The first is ACT bullshit aimed at undermining basic employment rights. The second would correct a long-standing hole in our copyright laws, and hopefully it will be passed.

There were 73 bills in the ballot today - the most in quite some time. Naturally, Chris Hipkins doesn't have one - he doesn't care about anything / is too good for actual work. And naturally, his deputy Carmel Sepuloni is pushing for a four-year Parliamentary term, which tells us that what Labour really cares about is job security and unaccountability for themselves.

Wednesday, November 06, 2024



Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day. First up is the committee stage of Teanau Tuiono's Restoring Citizenship Removed By Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act 1982 Bill. This will be followed by the second reading of Rima Nakhle's Corrections (Victim Protection) Amendment Bill. And then, finally, the House will get on to some first readings: Tracey McLellan's Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill, Camilla Belich's Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Bill, and (if the House moves quickly) Julie Anne Genter's Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill. Which means there will finally be a ballot tomorrow, for two or three bills. Which I guess is why the page of proposed member's bills is filling up with new ones...

End the government, not te Tiriti

For the last few months the Waitangi Tribunal has been holding an urgent inquiry into National's "Treaty Principles Bill". They've already issued one interim report, declaring it to be a steaming pile of racist horseshit, but the inquiry is still going on to determine just how big and how steaming and how shitty that pile is. This is obviously embarrassing for the government, so they decided to put a stop to it, with a plan to rob the Tribunal of jurisdiction by introducing the bill to the House early.

Obviously, it didn't work. The government's lawyers immediately told the Tribunal (as they were obliged to do under their duty of candour to the court); the Tribunal immediately passed this on to claimant's lawyers (ditto); and then it produced an interim report (it being their job to do so), declaring the bill to be "worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty/te Tiriti in modern times" which, if passed and not immediately repealed, "could mean the end of the Treaty/te Tiriti" (which is, sadly, the point; this white supremacist government wants to end te Tiriti, and that needs to be said loud and clear so we all know what is at stake).

And now Rimmer has the gall to be upset at the Tribunal for doing its job when he tried to stop it. Because apparently he thought he could rob it of jurisdiction and so prevent criticism of his white supremacist, anti-constitutional policy in secret, without anyone noticing or being allowed to do anything. Which just shows how utterly contemptuous of democratic norms this racist fuckweasel is.

Democratic governments don't try and undermine the foundations of their constitution. And they especially don't try and do it in secret, with a blitzkreig to prevent and limit opposition. That's Trumpist shit, and stuff we should not tolerate in Aotearoa.

Neither should we tolerate Rimmer's bill. Te Tiriti is the foundation of our constitution. While it is not the source of the government's sovereignty (because sovereignty was never ceded), it is one of the key sources of its legitimacy. It meddles with it at its peril. If the government wants to end te Tiriti and the crown-Māori relationship, then I think that many kiwis would rather end them and their illegitimate regime instead.

26,000 unemployed under National

The latest labour market statistics have dropped, showing another rise in unemployment. There are now 148,000 unemployed - 26,000 more than when National took office.

...which is what happens when you sack thousands of public servants and have the Reserve Bank crash the economy. This is apparently the most severe per-capita recession in our history, and its completely self-inflicted for purely ideological reasons. What's scary is that this recession will have a body-count, measured both in direct suicides as well as ill-health. We need some way of holding the murderers who have inflicted it to account.

Tuesday, November 05, 2024



National's privatised child-abuse camps

National has a hard-on for "boot camps" as part of its desperate attempt to grub "tough on crime" votes from sadistic geriatric pedophobes. That's bad enough, but its gets worse: the camps will be privatised. And they will be allowed to use force against children:

A leaked ministerial document from the Children’s Minister shows an admission that giving military-style academy providers the power to use force against children may be seen as “increasing the potential risk of abuse in custody”.

[...]

Cabinet agreed that military-style academy providers – including “third-party providers” – will have the power to use force against young people outside of a residence, such as on overnight camps or rehabilitative programmes. Currently, powers only exist when a person is at a residence.

Providers would be able to use physical force, no greater than reasonably necessary, to restrain a young person attempting to abscond or harm themselves or others.

The problem of course is that Oranga Tamaraki already treats those in its care as sub-human, and physically abuses them; private providers will likely be worse, and certainly be far less accountable. While Karen Chhour is denying it, this is a recipe to repeat the abuses of the past, and Chhour and National need to be held accountable for that.

Meanwhile, Luxon is all over the place about this, first pretending he "wasn't briefed", then, when it was pointed out that that made him look like a stupid fool who had no idea what was happening around his own Cabinet table, admitting that he was. Which I guess shows us the dishonesty of his claims to be "unaware" of things, and how he uses them to try and kill questions and avoid accountability.

Stephen Rainbow is ACT's crony

Back in August, National sabotaged human rights by appointing terf and genocide supporter Stephen Rainbow as Chief Human Rights Commissioner. The Spinoff has been digging into this, and they've uncovered new information: Rainbow didn't actually get the job - until suddenly he did:

“I didn’t get the HRC role but still very keen to help out,” wrote Stephen Rainbow to Act Party chief of staff Andrew Ketels in a text message on May 22 this year. Rainbow had applied for the position of chief human rights commissioner, after being nominated by Act leader David Seymour, and been interviewed for the job in March. He did not receive a text back from Ketels.

But nearly three months later, Ketels did text. “Congratulations!” On that day, Rainbow had been announced by justice minister Paul Goldsmith as the new chief human rights commissioner. “Thanks Andrew,” Rainbow replied. “Appreciate the opportunity to serve my country.” He is due to start in his role at the commission next week.

So, Rainbow was ACT's choice, and the natural conclusion is that they pressured Goldsmith to overturn the transparent and independent appointments process to shoe-horn their saboteur into office. A saboteur BTW who commiserated with ACT about the "challenging time for your office and David as you head into Waitangi Day"... which sounds just a little bit racist, and adds to the evidence that he is a completely unsuitable appointee incapable of properly performing the functions of the office, who should be immediately sacked by the next government.

Monday, November 04, 2024



Sabotaging justice

One of the achievements of the Labour-led government was the establishment of the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2019. After decades of high-profile miscarriages of justice, and judges looking the other way on state conspiracies of silence and each other's fuckups, we finally got an outside body to cast an independent eye over dodgy convictions, and refer them back for re-examination. But now, National seems to be trying to sabotage it, by their usual method of dubious appointments:

[L]ast week Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith told Hampton, CCRC head Colin Carruthers, KC, and fellow commissioner Virginia Hope their terms wouldn’t be renewed when they expired in December, despite them wishing to continue.

They have been replaced by two less experienced lawyers, with the chief commissioner’s job controversially going to retired judge Denis Clifford.

On Thursday afternoon, Hampton resigned from the commission with immediate effect, saying that allowed him to speak about his serious concerns with the appointments, and the the CCRC’s future.

Hampton said the changes at the commission effectively stripped it of anyone with experience in the commission’s core work of investigating individual miscarriages, which he and Carruthers had extensive involvement in, prior to the CCRC’s formation.

Moreover, it removed the only people who had significant backgrounds in criminal defence work, and added more commissioners who were previously Crown prosecutors, Hampton said.

So, rather than being an independent, outside view, it will be the system "re-examining" itself (in some cases, they may even be re-examining their own decisions). The foxes will be back in charge of the henhouse, able to go back to pretending there isn't a problem, just like they did before the CCRC was established.

Pretty obviously, this will undermine public confidence in the CCRC, and deter people from applying. And that's the point. Miscarriages of justice are expensive and embarrassing for the state. And so it has decided to limit its liability - just as it did with child torture. The rotten state doesn't want justice; it just wants its victims to shut up and go away.

As for how to fix this, as with the Human Rights Commission and Waitangi Tribunal, sacking National's saboteurs would be a start. But beyond that, the next government needs to amend the CCRC's legislation to ensure that New Zealand judges, prosecutors, and police officers cannot serve on the commission or taint its independence. If we want people to have confidence in the CCRC - and by extension, the entire justice system - we can accept no less.

Friday, November 01, 2024



The High Court says "Land Back"

Way back in 1839, the New Zealand Company bought the area that is now Nelson from local iwi and hapu. As part of the deal, they promised that Māori would retain their homes, fields, and burial grounds, and that in addition, 10% of the land in the planned township and surroundings would be set aside for them. A few years later, the New Zealand government, as part of its investigations into pre-Treaty land deals, effectively took over the arrangement. They then proceeded to break it: land which was meant to be set aside was stolen; promised land was never delivered; and what was given was stolen again for "government purposes". The local iwi have been fighting this ever since, and in 2017 won a major victory in the Supreme Court with a ruling that the government owed them a fiduciary duty and must honour the deal. They kicked it back down to the High Court to decide exactly what was owed, and after seven years of foot-dragging the court has finally ruled, deciding that the government must give them their land back:

Māori customary landowners in New Zealand’s oldest property claim, the Nelson Tenths, suffered a loss of land and are entitled to millions of dollars in compensation, the High Court has found.

In a decision released on Thursday, the plaintiffs, led by kaumātua Rore Stafford on behalf of the descendants of customary landowners, were found to be entitled to relief, which was likely to be “substantially less than $1 billion” but still a “significant sum”, the court found.

The sum could not be settled until the final acreage of land to be returned and other issues are determined, a press summary on the decision said.

...which the government will no doubt try and drag out for another seven years, as part of the same immoral legal strategy it used on the children it tortured. But the principle isn't in doubt: the High Court said "Land Back". And if they've already given it away, then they have to pay compensation. In addition, there's 180 years of back-rent, plus 180 years of interest. Its simple interest, not compounding, but: this is going to be hugely expensive for the government.

(Note that "given it away" apparently includes to SOEs and Crown Entities, which are part of the government. The government here is behaving exactly like a rich bankrupt who hides their assets in a trust: sure, they can use them, control them, even get money from them, but they're not "theirs", so can't be used to pay off their suckerscreditors. Whether this position meets the standard of ethical behaviour we expect from our government, or is consistent with its longstanding position that privatisation would not undermine Treaty redress, is left as an exercise for the reader...)

So, given the current government's anti-Māori agenda, the question naturally arises: will National once again abuse its Parliamentary power to over-rule the courts and prevent justice, as they are doing over the foreshore and seabed? Sadly, I don't think it can be ruled out. But if they try and go that way, it would be another ongoing Treaty breach, and basically blow up the crown-Māori relationship completely. National might not care about that: Māori don't vote for them. But the rest of us should. And we should not let it happen.