Fiji's military dictator, Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, has declared that the Fijian military "does not condone violence" and promised that all allegations of human rights abuses "will be thoroughly investigated on an independent basis by the Police and the Human Rights Commission." Meanwhile, senior military officers reportedly prevented police from interviewing soldiers implicated in the murder of Sakiusa Rabaka Ligaiviu. So much for a thorough investigation. Instead, the military seems to be saying one thing, doing another, and hoping that nobody notices the obvious contradiction between their words and their actions.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
"Well paid"
Fruit growers have started their usual seasonal whine about the lack of fruit pickers. They just can't understand why people turn their nose up at the work - after all, according to the Fruit Growers Association it's well paid:
Picking was hard work, but it paid well, Ms Vesty said.The minimum bin rate in Hawke's Bay was abound $30 a bin. An average picker filled about three to four bins a day.
Doing the maths, this works out to $105 a day, or $525 for a five-day week - less than the average weekly income. On an hourly basis, assuming an eight-hour day (not a given with fruit picking) it works out to the princely sum of $13.13/hour - not much above minimum wage ($10.25/hour now; $11.25/hour from April 1st, and probably $12/hour by 2008).
(If the comparisom is done with three bins, rather than 3.5, it works out to a nice tidy $11.25/hour - so minimum wage is now "well paid"...)
People can judge for themselves whether this is "well paid" - and they clearly are. If the Fruit Growers Association wants a decent supply of workers, then maybe they should ensure that their pay rates match their rhetoric, rather than trying to bullshit people as they are at present.
Corporate bullying. Brought to you by mining
Hot on the heels of Solid Energy's corporate bullying of the Save Happy Valley Campaign comes this story from Australia. The NSW Minerals Council, a coal lobby group, is running an expensive ad campaign on the theme of "Life. Brought to you by Mining". This crude attempt at greenwashing ("A cleaner future. Brought to you by Mining"?) lends itself to obvious parody - and so Rising Tide Australia did their own website with their own ads highlighting the environmental cost of coal:
The coal lobby couldn't tolerate this subversion of their message, and so they had the website closed down on the grounds that it "infringes copyright". However, Australian copyright law has explicit protection for parody and satire as "fair dealing". But I guess the coal industry considers themselves above that, just as they consider themselves above criticism.
Update: The website is back up here.
No political freedom in Iran
Last June, a group of women protested in Tehran against Iran's use of Islamic family law, which they regarded as discriminatory. They were promptly arrested and beaten. On Sunday five of them finally appeared in court on charges of "acting against national security by participating in an illegal gathering". A group of women protesting outside the court were likewise arrested for pointing out that Iran's constitution affirms freedom of peaceful assembly. Meanwhile, the original protestors - and their lawyer - were arrested again as they left the courtroom. All this for engaging in what we assume to be a basic right in a civilised society: peacefully questioning and advocating against government policy.
The right to peacefully assemble and protest is vital to bringing about political change. But that is precisely what the Iranian government wants to prevent.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Winning hearts and minds
It looks like the Americans are winning hearts and minds again in Afghanistan.
It looks like the usual story: American troops come under attack, and respond in the usual trigger-happy fashion, shooting at anybody or anything around them. As a result, eight people are dead - and a significant portion of the local population are radicalised against them. They couldn't have helped the Taleban more if they'd tried.
Fixed
People may have noticed that the "recent comments" list in the sidebar was broken for the last couple of weeks. This was due to Blogger's RSS feed being stuck sometime in the past. However, it seems to be fixed now, so you don't have to go trawling through every post to find out if there is anything new.
Hopefully they won't inadvertantly break it againany time soon...
Estonian elections
Estonia went to the polls over the weekend in Parliamentary elections, and seem to have returned the incumbent coalition to power. Meanwhile, according to the detailed results on Wikipedia, the conservative Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica, in government until 2005, got thoroughly caned at the polls, seeing the 35 seats previously held by its constituent parties shrink to 19.
The most interesting feature of the elections however is the use of remote internet voting - people can vote from home at their computers, rather than going in to a polling booth. This is made possible by the widespread use of chipped ID cards, which act as a unique identifier and log-in for the voting system. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any real protection against the real problem of electronic voting: lack of transparency and verifiability.
Why Rickards has to go
Auckland mayor Dick Hubbard tells it like it is on Clint Rickard's future employment, declaring that Rickards is not fit to protect Auckland's women:
"I don't see how any policeman could say, 'Two of my best friends are in jail for rape, and by the way I want to be head policeman in Auckland so I can protect the women folk of Auckland'," Mr Hubbard said.
Except its worse than that, because he's said he thinks his friends are innocent, and their victim (along with all the others) is a liar. And we're supposed to believe that this man can fairly direct future rape investigations? That he'll encourage officers under his command to thoroughly investigate such cases, rather than dismissing them out of hand and encouraging them not to make statements, like his mate John Dewar did with Louise Nicholas?
Unfortunately, being a misogynist who supports rape isn't ruled out by the police employment contract. If it was, we'd clearly have a few less police officers.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Friday, March 02, 2007
A small move, but a good one
The government is introducing a "transition to work" subsidy of up to $1500 to help beneficiaries and low-income earners move into work. It's a small move, but a good one. Moving from a benefit into work costs money - you need work clothes, and face increased costs for transport, food, and childcare - and this will help cover it and make it easier. If the aim is to get people off benefits permanently (insofar as that is possible in today's casualised employment market), then it is worth spending some money to do it.
At the same time, there is more the government could do. Currently, taking employment is a risk for those on a benefit - if it doesn't work out, you may face a stand-down period at the other end in which you will have no income. Making it easier to restart payments if a job ends will reduce that risk. Helping people who are willing move in pursuit of work, and raising the heavily eroded income test thresholds for working on a benefit would also help. But above all, they need to continue the push to raise wages. If the government wants people to get jobs, then the least it can do is ensure that they pay well, rather than leaving people worse off than they were before.
Fiji: silencing the media
Fijian soldiers have detained the chief executive of the Fiji Daily Post for the newspaper's "defiant stance against the military". Mesake Koroi was taken to a military barracks yesterday and reportedly will only be released when the newspaper stops criticising the military and its puppet interim regime.
Of course, in a democracy, criticising the government is the right (if not the duty) of every citizen. But its clear that Fiji is no longer a democracy - instead it has been reduced to a tinpot military dictatorship.
Hicks charged
After five years in captivity in Guantanamo, Australian David Hicks has finally been charged and will face "trial" before a military tribunal. However, the charge - "providing material support for terrorism" - has never existed in the laws of war. Instead, it was created by the US Military Commissions Act of 2006 and is being applied retrospectively. This is not acceptable under US legal standards, or those of any civilised nation - but the US is able to get away with it because the same law which retroactively created the offence also stripped those charged of any right to challenge any aspect of their trial before the ordinary courts. So, the US will be able to subject Hicks to what is essentially an extralegal process before a kangaroo court, and the justice system which normally protects defendants from this sort of abuse will remain legally blind to it. And the Australian government is colluding in it.
This is fundamentally unjust. As Hick's lawyer, Major Michael Mori, points out, "providing material support for terrorism" is a charge under ordinary US criminal law. The US could, if it wanted to, try Hicks in front of a federal court on this charge. The reason they don't, of course, is because their "evidence" - assembled from hearsay and the screams of torture victims - would not stand up to an instant's scrutiny in a proper court of law.
Banned in China
ScoopIt this morning had a link to a site which tests whether a site is blocked by the Great Firewall of China. Naturally, I had to try, and it seems that my evil liberal propaganda and talk about democracy and human rights is deemed a corrupting influence which the Chinese people must not be allowed to read.
I wonder if I can get a badge?
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Whenuakite
I'm pleased that the government has done the decent thing and backed down over its plans to sell Whenuakite station. I'm less pleased with those like John Key who think that it was wrong to do so. This was a case where the government was clearly and blatantly in the wrong, acting in bad faith by selling the land out from under a future Treaty settlement. Admitting it, putting the sale on hold, and promising to review the policy was the least they could do. Arguing, as Key has, that the government should not have "buckled to pressure" is to argue that the government should never admit it is mistaken, even when it clearly is. And arguing that people should not protest about blatantly wrong decisions - again as Key has - is to deny us any role or influence in government decisionmaking and reduce us to an executive dictatorship.
This incident has not only revealed the government's ongoing bad faith in the Treaty settlement process - a terrible mistake given our desire that these settlements last - it has also revealed the National Party's undemocratic, dictatorial urges. Neither is a very pretty sight.
A verdict
The jury in the latest police rape trial has found the defendants not guilty.
It is difficult enough to prosecute rape at the best of times. When the offence occurred so long in the past, there is no DNA or other forensic evidence, and even the victim's memory grows hazy, it is practically impossible. Reasonable doubt protects the innocent, but it may also protect the guilty where prosecution has not been timely. The solution is not to discard reasonable doubt, or shift the burden of proof in rape cases, or allow people to be tried on the basis of what other offences they have committed rather than the evidence in that particular case (as some have suggested) - it is to insist that the police do their fucking jobs properly.
If Rickards, Shipton and Schollum have gotten away with kidnapping, rape, and indecent assault, it is because back in the 80's the police did not investigate their own, and (in the Nicholas case at least) other officers covered up for them. This sort of corruption and impunity should not be tolerated in any police force. Everyone should be equal before the law - especially those tasked to uphold it. Things have changed - recent prosecutions of serving police officers (including Rickards) prove that - but I'm not yet sure whether they've changed enough. Perhaps I'll believe it when the Police Complaints Authority produces investigations rather than whitewashes, and when the police no longer award commendations to officers for incidents in which they were found to have unjustifiably assaulted people.
Thin
A couple of times recently I've commented on the thinness of the government's legislative agenda. How thin is it? Take a look at today's Order Paper. There are sixteen government bills listed - but the government only seems interested in progressing eight of them. The rest is an assortment of stalled or dead bills which have been hanging around at the bottom of the list for the past few years. For example, the Oaths Modernisation Bill has been waiting for its second reading for the last two years - something the government doesn't want to do as it will involve inevitable flak about "creeping republicanism" and "political correctness". The Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill is on hold pending the outcome of the inquiry into police misconduct and the various police rape cases. The Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill is dead and does not have the numbers to pass, but no-one wants to admit it. And the Conservation (Protection of Trout as a Non-commercial Species) Amendment Bill has been waiting for its committee stage since 1998. Surely its time they admitted it was dead?
The government also has bills in select committee - 15 of them, of which a couple (such as the Arms Amendment Bill (No 3)) are clearly stalled and going nowhere fast. Its not a lot - barely enough to keep Parliament ticking over.
Worse, most of the bills on the agenda are makework, the usual legislative tinkering of reviewing and updating the law. The government has no real agenda. Their reliance on New Zealand First and United Future has reduced them to being effectively a caretaker government.
There are two points out of this. Firstly, the only excitement in Parliament - the only area we're seeing real legislation rather than makework - is through Member's Bills. If the government won't govern, it would be nice if they'd allow Parliament to by allowing an extra Member's Day. Secondly, given the dearth of real legislation on the Order Paper, and the expected timing for bills to emerge from select committee, there's a real danger over the next few weeks of the government exhausting its agenda and overflowing into the dead zone. I'm not sure what happens then - do they collapse the House and declare a holiday, or do they suddenly grant leave to go on to member's business? Unless the government gets a legislative agenda soon, we may be about to find out...
Shaking hands with a torturer
What is it with Helen Clark and torturers? First, she shook hands with Pakistan's President Musharraf - an unelected dictator who presides over the widespread use of torture and state impunity. Then she did it with General John Abizaid, the US general responsible at the time for the occupation of Iraq, who bore command responsibility for the abuses of Abu Ghraib and the massacre of Fallujah, and who reportedly deliberately looked the other way on torture committed by US forces. And now she's going to Washington to shake hands with president Bush
Just in case anyone has forgotten, this is a man who lied his way into a war which has now led to the deaths of 655,000 Iraqis. A man who is now planning to do it all again in Iran. A man who authorised an illegal and immoral system of disappearance and torture, in which suspected terrorists are kidnapped, flown halfway around the world, imprisoned in "black sites" in foreign countries, and subjected to strapado, waterboarding - techniques used by the Spanish Inquisition, the South American juntas, and the Nazis.
Any decent person would refuse to meet with such a person. Any decent person wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire. And our Prime Minister is going to shake his hand on our behalf.
It's nice to know where Labour really stands, isn't it?
Carnival of the Liberals
The 33rd Carnival of the Liberals is now up at Blue Gal. Unfortunately, its all in Limericks.
