NZ Post spied on the public

Last night we learned that NZ Post had been spying on the public, using microphones on its delivery vehicles to record and listen to conversations between its employees and random members of the public without the consent of either party. They've stopped now, after a Privacy Act complaint was laid, but its not just the Privacy Act they should be worrying about, but criminal prosecution. Because pretty obviously, this seems to be a case of using an interception device:

Subject to subsections (2) to (5), every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years who intentionally intercepts any private communication by means of an interception device.

Microphones are "interception devices", and there's no question that the spying was intentional and knowing: NZ Post had been downloading recordings of conversations and listening to them. A "private communication" in this context means a conversation where there's a reasonable expectation of privacy, and that depends on the context. Some of the recorded conversations - on public footpaths with other people nearby, for example - won't be "private", while others (e.g. those up people's driveways or even at letterboxes where there aren't others around) certainly will be. And those are certainly conversations where the police would need a surveillance warrant to eavesdrop with a directional microphone.

The only real defence available to NZ Post is whether it was a "party" to those conversations. This normally covers employers in the workplace e.g. spying on phone calls and email. But in those cases, employees know. And as we've seen with Todd Barclay, they're not allowed to stick a dictaphone under someone's desk and listen to them. In this case, NZ Post seem to have Barclayed every one of their little spytrucks, without the knowledge of either their employees or the public. I don't think they can argue that they're a party, and I very much doubt they had any sort of surveillance or intelligence warrant for their spying. So the question is: will they be prosecuted? And if not, why not?

Barnaby Joyce is a New Zealand citizen

Over the last few weeks the Australian Parliament has been rocked by a succession of resignations and court referrals over various Senators falling foul of s44 of the Australian constitution, which bars dual-citizens from the legislature. Today, that clause appears to have claimed its highest profile victim, with Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce referring himself to the High Court so they can investigate whether he is a kiwi. But I don't think there's any question about it at all.

According to his Wikipedia page, Joyce was born in 1967 in New South Wales. However:

His father, James Joyce, was born in New Zealand and moved to Australia to study veterinary science at the University of Sydney, where he met Joyce's mother, Marie

The Guardian has some links here and a conviluted explanation about the Citizenship Act 1977 (as enacted) and claims to citizenship by descent lapsing. But the descent clause of that Act only applies to those "born outside New Zealand on or after 1 January 1978". Joyce was born before that, so his existing rights of citizenship were protected by s13 of the Act, which makes it very clear that everyone who was already a citizen stays one, and (to reiterate the rules of the British Nationality and New Zealand Citizenship Act 1948),

every person born outside New Zealand on or after 1 January 1949 but before 1 January 1978 shall be a New Zealand citizen by descent if... in any case, his father was a New Zealand citizen at the time of that person's birth

Joyce's father was a kiwi, so he is a kiwi, end of story, no registration required. Which means that he will lose his seat in Parliament. That seat is the Australian government's majority, so NZ citizenship law may very well have just caused an Australian election.

Edit to add: Joyce is apparently trying to argue that his father wasn't a New Zealand citizen because we didn't create a citizenship until 1948 and before then everyone was a "British subject". Unfortunately that doesn't help him. Section 16(1) of the British Nationality and New Zealand Citizenship Act 1948 is crystal clear:


Joyce's father was a British subject immediately before the date of the commencement of the Act. He was born in New Zealand. And so under New Zealand law he became a New Zealand citizen, whether he knew it or not.

National resorts to racism on water

National knows it can't defeat the Labour-Green policy on water charging on fairness grounds, so they're now appealing to racism, with Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson scaremongering that making farmers pay their fair share will mean reopening historic Treaty settlements:

Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson is warning that Labour's water taxes could force existing full-and-final Treaty of Waitangi settlements to be opened for renegotiation with iwi.

He said the policy overturned accepted policy of successive Labour and National Governments of the past 25 years that no one owned the water.

Governments applying a tax on water was an assertion of Crown ownership "and then that gives rise to the counter assertion that Maori own water".

"They are dicing with death, quite frankly," he told the Herald.

"It opens a complete Pandora's Box. I'd like to know [if] it is Labour Party policy that, after all the work we've done, both political parties over 25 years, are they proposing to re-open treaty settlements so that this matter can be looked at?

Except of course it wouldn't, for the simple reason that those settlements cover historic claims. A unilateral government assertion of water ownership would be a fresh injustice, and simply not covered by those settlements.

But Finlayson's dishonesty gets worse, because National has itself recognised that it needs to settle the issue with iwi. Their Cabinet paper on the Land and Water Forum's mock consultation notes that "Cabinet also agreed on June 2 [CAB Min (09) 19/7A] that there is a need to make real progress in the unresolved area of Māori rights and interests in water", which is why the iwi leadership group has been involved in the entire process. They have considered and rejected a nationwide "Waterlords" settlement which would resolve any issues around the Treaty and water allocation and pricing, primarily because they want to impede any progress in that area in order to continue subsidising farmers (or rather, letting them effectively own and sell the public's water, without having to pay for it).

This isn't a "Pandora's box". The model for an easy, full and final settlement to resolve this exists, and iwi are keen. What is lacking is goodwill from the government to sign it. And Finlayson knows all this - so he is actively trying to mislead the New Zealand public about it, trying to appeal to the racism of rednecks in order to protect the stolen "rights" of a privileged few. And to be honest, I thought he was a better person than that. But I guess now that English is back in charge, National is back to the same racism he ran on in 2002. He lost then; lets hope for the sake of New Zealand that he loses again.

The rising tide sucks us down

National is trying to talk up its supposed "economic growth" for the election. But the Herald's Brian Fallow points out the truth: the economy may be growing on paper, but its not making us better off:

The average wage (average ordinary-time hourly earnings from Statistics New Zealand's quarterly employment survey) rose 1.6 per cent in the year to June. But that was boosted by some pay increases in the public sector that had been a long time coming.

In the private sector, the average wage rose 1.2 per cent, in a year when consumer prices rose 1.7 per cent. In other words, it fell 0.5 per cent in real terms. That was still better than the March report, when annual wage growth was 1.1 per cent and inflation 2.2 per cent.

[...]

Interest rates are historically low. The terms of trade (the mix of export and import prices) are the most favourable they have been for 44 years, boosting national income. The demand pulse from the need to rebuild our second largest city has been followed by the need to respond to the largest city bursting at the seams. Tourism is booming.

In these circumstances, are declining real wages the best we can do?

And that's a good question. Economic growth is supposed to make us better off - "a rising tide lifts all boats" as the rich love to say. Except it turns out that its all a lie, and the rich's rising tide in fact sucks the rest of us down.

It doesn't have to be this way. The reason growth doesn't benefit ordinary kiwis is a matter of policy choices made by the government to favour the rich over the rest of us. Those choices can be made differently, as they were in the 2000's. All we need is a government which works for us, not foreign billionaires...

British inquiries are a sham

We all know how it goes: the UK establishment does something terrible, like murdering people, or illegally invading somewhere, or burning hundreds of people to death in a high-rise incinerator. The public get justifiably angry. The government announces an "independent" inquiry to "get to the bottom of" or "draw a line under" the issue. The inquiry drags on for years, decades even - as long as it takes for public anger to dissipate and for those responsible to disappear off into the private sector or retirement with fat golden handshakes. When it finally reports back, the problems are found to be "systemic" and no-one is held to account.

It sounds like a sham, and it is. And now those who have been involved in such inquiries have openly said so:

Two original panel members of the government’s child abuse inquiry have said they were forced to fight attempts at political control and interference from the Home Office when it was run by Theresa May.

The pair said they wanted to speak out to warn potential members of supposedly independent teams being assembled at the orders of the prime minister to investigate the Grenfell Tower fire and contaminated blood transfusions.

Sharon Evans and Graham Wilmer revealed how government officials intervened with the independent panel members by preparing a 23-page document instructing them how to answer questions from MPs.

Both left the inquiry when the original panel was disbanded within months of its formation and have since been critical of the inquiry.

In practice, these "independent" inquiries are tightly directed by the government of the day to ensure that they don't cause any problems. What they're allowed to investigate, what they're allowed to say, who they're allowed to listen to. The establishment members of such inquiries have no problem with this - they know its all a scam to pacify the public and prevent any accountability. But non-establishment members clearly take the government's promises of justice and expect something a little better. More fool them. Because the dirty truth is that there is no justice in British inquiries. Instead, they are an instrument to deny justice and uphold the unjust status quo. People should not cooperate with them and they should not participate in them. And they should not treat them as anything other than a scam and a further insult to the government's victims.

New Fisk

If you're wondering why Saudi Arabia and Israel have united against Al-Jazeera, here's the answer

Irrigation is a threat to public health

That's the view of Canterbury Medical Officer of Health Alistair Humphrey:

Drinking water in the Selwyn District is at increasing risk of contamination as more dairy cows are being farmed there, local residents have been told.

[...]

Dr Humphrey said it was impossible for the regional council, Environment Canterbury, to meet its targets for reducing pollutants while at the same time meeting its other targets for increasing the amount of irrigation that was happening.

He said a soon-to-be released report from the council showed the level of polluting nitrates in ground water was increasing in 25 percent of wells.

"There's increases all the way across the Canterbury Plains, so we're not doing very well and we're not even hitting the targets we've set ourselves."

Dr Humphrey said high nitrate levels were potentially fatal for newborn babies, and this was something midwives were now factoring into their visits to expectant mothers.

What's really worrying is that they try and do their jobs and take action against the people polluting the water table, they get told that they can't because they don't want to upset the Minister. Think about that for a moment. We have a clear threat to public health, pollution that poisons babies, and it is allowed to continue because of Ministerial interference. That's simply not acceptable. Public health officials must be free to do their job of protecting us. And the polluting industries which are endangering us must be forced to stop.

Public servants should work for us, not foreign billionaires

Another sign of the decay in transparency under National: the Department of Internal Affairs unlawfully allowed lawyers for foreign vampire capitalist Peter Thiel to veto what was released about him under the OIA:

An Official Information Act request by the Herald into the handling of the botched redaction revealed emails showing lawyers acting for Thiel were behind the blacking-out of the short time he lived in the country.

The Ombudsman's full ruling showed Internal Affairs were happy to accommodate Thiel's concerns, despite describing the case for protecting his privacy in this case was "borderline".

Once again, we have a department ignoring its own judgements about what is lawful in order to bow to the wishes of the powerful. And that is simply not acceptable. The government must obey the law. And our public servants should work for us, not foreign billionaires.

We need a housing warrant of fitness

Why we need a warrant of fitness for rental housing: because unhealthy housing is making thousands of kids sick a year:

In a 50-page paper released today, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians has called on politicians to do more to address the causes of health inequity in New Zealand.

Too many people were living in cold, mouldy and over-crowded homes and it was ruining the health of children in particular, the college said.

[...]

"Cold, old, damp and mouldy houses directly links to poor health through respiratory illnesses, and those illnesses affect vulnerable groups in our society like children and elderly people and can exacerbate their other health conditions."

That was especially bad in winter, Dr Christiansen said.

More than 40,000 people were living in precarious, insecure housing, including garages, sheds and caravan park, he said.

The problem here is the houses. So why won't the government address this? Simple: because they're all landlords, and sticking up for their own "right" to profit from (government-created) desperation by renting out unhealthy homes. It is simply corrupt. But that is how the establishment rules New Zealand.

Statoil spies

Greenpeace has caught New Zealand's most infamous private spy agency, Thompson & Clark, spying on them:

Greenpeace claims it has caught spies in the act of tracking its staff and supporters and compiling detailed dossiers.

Greenpeace New Zealand executive director Russel Norman told the Herald the surveillance included tracking people in their private lives.

The environmental lobby group has filed a civil suit in the High Court against Thompson & Clark Investigations alleging breach of privacy and seeking an injunction to stop the surveillance.

[...]

"We have discovered that Greenpeace has been subject to systematic highly intrusive investigations by Thompson & Clark [Investigations] and people working for them," Norman said.

"They have been following our staff and volunteers in their private lives as well as their professional lives.

"We took steps to confirm some of the information we received. That involved looking at some of the dossiers compiled by Thompson & Clark. We also put in place a counter-surveillance operation to catch them in the act.

You may remember Thompson & Clark as the outfit Solid Energy hired to spy on anti-coal activists a decade ago and which has used illegal tracking devices on animal rights activists. Now they're working for Statoil and Anadarko - foreign companies. Which incidentally makes them an agent of a foreign power, spying on New Zealanders to try and disrupt our democracy. Supposedly we have an agency which is supposed to protect us from shit like that, but I think we all know whose side they're on. And so its left to Greenpeace to protect themselves through the courts.

The New Zealand government is allegedly involved in this as well (by which I assume MBIE). We've seen this before with Timberlands and Solid Energy, and it is simply not acceptable for any government agency to hire private thugs to spy on and disrupt democratic opposition to government policy. There needs to be a full and public inquiry into any government involvement, and if there is any, it needs to be stamped out and the people who arranged it fired. There should be no place in our public service or wider public sector for those who would suppress democracy.

Meanwhile, we should be asking Norway why a supposedly friendly country is hiring thugs to disrupt our democracy, and whether they think it is acceptable or in accordance with their democratic values.

Why should we subsidise the dairy industry?

The Green-Labour policy to make commercial water users pay for their use of a public resource has farmers running scared and whining that it will force them out of business. To which the response is "so?" To point out the obvious, that water is a public resource, and it is only fair that farmers pay for it. Letting them not pay for it is effectively subsidising them. And why should urban New Zealand subsidise environmental destruction for the private profit of a few?

The same argument applies to the whining about Canterbury dairy farmers going out of business if they have to clean up their act to save Lake Ellesmere. These farmers are currently destroying a public resource, causing (according to ECan) $300 million in economic damage to it per year. Which means that we are effectively subsidising them by that sum. And why the hell should we do that?

Polluters should pay the full social costs of the resources they use and the environmental damage they cause. If paying those costs means that they are no longer (privately) profitable, then they were never profitable in the first place - they were simply hiding that fact by getting us to pay for their losses. And in such situations, the best thing that can happen to such businesses is for them to go out of business as quickly as possible, so they don't cost us any more money.

Burn it all to the fucking ground

That's my immediate response to the news that Metiria Turei has resigned and will be leaving Parliament. Rage, just utter rage at a political system where this can happen. Where people who have been poor are villified and harassed because of the choices a corrupt, unfair, immoral system forced them to make. Where those people are sent a clear message that they should not and never can be involved in politics. Where instead, we're ruled by entitled wankers like Gower and Hosking and People Like Them who meet their approval.

The actual resignation was triggered by unsubstantiated rumours put about about Metiria's family. The sort of rumours which are impossible to answer without involving people who never signed up for politics. Rather than do that, Metiria resigned. It was the decent thing to do. At the same time, it is utterly fucking vile that these arseholes get to win like this. It is absolutely disgusting that the right wins by going after people's families. But that's the sort of arseholes we have running this country.

Earlier today, I said that if the right wants a C19th "democracy" which excludes poor people, they need to be reminded of the C19th solution: pitchforks and guillotines. I stand by that. Fuck them all, burn it all to the fucking ground.

Justice for CIA torture?

So far the US courts have ruled that those tortured illegally by the CIA can receive no justice from their torturers. But there is someone they can go after: the unethical psychologists who designed the torture programs:

A civil lawsuit brought by three victims of the CIA’s torture program against the two psychologists who created it will go to court on 5 September in Washington state, after a judge ruled that more than a year of discovery had yielded sufficient evidence to support the plaintiffs’ claims.

Judge Justin Quackenbush issued a written opinion on Monday in the suit, in which James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen are accused of designing, promoting and sharing responsibility for the interrogation methods to which the three men were subjected.

It will now be up to a jury in Spokane, Washington, to decide if the psychologists, who reportedly were paid $75m-$81m under their contract with the CIA to create the so-called enhanced interrogation program, are financially liable for the physical and psychological effects of their torture.

At least 39 men were tortured using Mitchell and Jesson's techniques, and at least one of them died. Its entirely right that they be held liable for that. But they're not the only ones, and it shouldn't just be civil. The CIA thugs who drowned people on the waterboards and the suited policy-makers who approved it should all be facing criminal charges, and long terms of imprisonment if convicted. The US's refusal to allow this is a betrayal both of its own professed values, and of its obligations under the Convention Against Torture.

More Australian corruption

The Australian Liberal Party has been taking money from the mafia:

A Liberal insider conspired to funnel donations from an alleged Mafia boss and his three relatives into party coffers after a lobster dinner involving the men and Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy, secret phone records have revealed.

Recordings of phone conversations obtained by Fairfax Media and Four Corners involving Liberal Party official Barrie Macmillan also capture Mr Macmillan plotting to split the promised donations into smaller amounts to avoid disclosing the source of the funds to authorities.

"They want to give Matthew a substantial donation towards next year. Now, I understand what they can and can't do," Mr Macmillan says on the recording, referring to alleged Mafia boss and long-time Liberal donor Tony Madafferi and three of his relatives.

[...]

Mr Macmillan said on the recording: "You can't associate Matthew with money and I would have to be the intermediary. But I'm talking about a swag of money that they're prepared to give for them [Mr Guy's campaign].

Guy has apparently referred himself to Victoria's corruption commission, which will find that everything is above board because they're specifically excluded from investigating cases like this. Which tells you how institutionally corrupt the Australian political system is: few safeguards, and the few they do have are intentionally crippled by corrupt politicians so that all they can do is provide a veneer of respectability. I'm utterly shocked that Australians put up with this. But I guess their unfair election system doesn't really give them much choice.

Class and Metiria

Over on Newsroom, Claire Timperley points out the not-so hidden subtext in the public lynching of Metiria Turei: class:

Beneficiary fraud is a uniquely class-based problem. The only people who are in the position of having to make difficult choices about whether to ‘play by the rules’ and by doing so risk not having the means to support their family are those who are in the poorest group of New Zealanders.

The fact Turei lied to the authorities demonstrates the very difficult position many beneficiaries find themselves in. Whether or not Turei made the morally or legally correct decision is not relevant to the issue I am raising (although there are undoubtedly important questions it raises about the beneficiary system).

What is important, however, is that by dint of her experience of this specifically class-based conundrum, she is no longer considered fit for high office.

And its all the more apparent when you compare it with Bill English's housing allowance rort: there, a rich man lied about where he lived and paid lawyers to order his affairs to scam the taxpayer of tens of thousands of dollars. But it was "within the rules" - rules he helped write - so its all OK. But as Simon Wilson points out on The Spinoff, beneficiaries don't have lawyers to order their affairs like this, and don't get to write their own loopholes, so they have to steal bread rather than being able to pay people to make it look like they're not stealing it. And again, that comes down to class.

The overwhelming message from the political status quo has been that poor people have no place in our Parliament and no place in government. That's been their message since the 18th century (hell, its been their message since fucking Plato). But if they want to overturn 150 years of democracy and go back to the C19th, then they are inviting the C19th response: pitchforks and guillotines.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day, the last for the Parliamentary term. Sadly, though, we won't be seeing a vote on death with dignity today, or any time soon.

Partly this is because there's an hour of valedictory statements taking up the House's time - Clayton Cosgrove and Murray McCully's political rememberances being considered more important than actually legislating. But mostly its because the top of the Order Paper is clogged with local bills and latter stages. First up is the second reading of the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill, aimed at easing the oozing sore of the Waitara Purchase and subsequent land thefts from local iwi. Then there is the first reading of the (vitally important, I'm sure) Thames–Coromandel District Council and Hauraki District Council Mangrove Management Bill. If the House moves quickly it might get on to the third readings of Chris Bishop's Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Order Classification) Amendment Bill and Sarah Dowie's Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill, but I don't think it'll get any further. And of course no first readings means no ballot tomorrow.

Labour steps up on water

Labour has followed the Greens' lead and committed to making commercial water users pay their fair share:

Water bottling companies and farmers operating irrigation schemes will pay royalties under Labour's new freshwater policy announced in Auckland on Wednesday.

Newly-minted Labour leader Jacinda Ardern has set out a plan to charge water bottling companies and users of irrigation schemes if Labour's in government after the election.

The policy would be flexible around drought or very wet areas but a rate won't be set until Ardern has an opportunity to consult on the issue, if in government after September 23.

Good. The New Zealand public are being ripped off over water, and in the process we're subsidising the harmful dairy industry to destroy our environment. But water is a public resource, and it is entirely right that companies who profit by extracting it pay for its use, just like they would for oil. Internalising those environmental costs may also help turn the tide against dairy intensification, and push farmers on to a more sustainable track. Alternatively, it might just drive the worst of them out of business. I'm fine either way.

This won't be easy - notably, it will require a Treaty settlement with the original owners - but its a necessary move to save our environment from destruction. And its good to see that Labour has got on board with that.

Climate change: Orwellian

How hostile is the Trump regime to climate change? They've banned Department of Agriculture scientists from even mentioning it:

Staff at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been told to avoid using the term climate change in their work, with the officials instructed to reference “weather extremes” instead.

[...]

A missive from Bianca Moebius-Clune, director of soil health, lists terms that should be avoided by staff and those that should replace them. “Climate change” is in the “avoid” category, to be replaced by “weather extremes”. Instead of “climate change adaption”, staff are asked to use “resilience to weather extremes”.

The primary cause of human-driven climate change is also targeted, with the term “reduce greenhouse gases” blacklisted in favor of “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency”. Meanwhile, “sequester carbon” is ruled out and replaced by “build soil organic matter”.

The clear aim is to remove any implication that people, and especially people who profit from the fossil fuel industry, are responsible for destroying the global climate. It is simply Orwellian manipulation of language. But I guess that's the sort of place the USA is now.

Climate change: "Happy with where we are"

14 NGOs have united to call on the government to pass a UK-style Climate Change Act, with legislated targets setting a downward path for emissions. National's response: yeah, nah:

Prime Minister Bill English said he had seen the letter but was happy with how New Zealand was getting on fighting climate change.

"We're happy with where we are on climate change," English said, but said some other policies to fight climate change might emerge before the election. There would not be a major shift from current policy.

"We've signed up to the Paris Accord - that's pretty clear cut, the measurements are published, we have the Emissions Trading System, which is one of most advanced carbon trading systems in the world."

"Where we are" is that we are going to miss our patheticly weak 2030 target, let alone National's "50% by 2050" target, because "one of most advanced carbon trading systems in the world" subsidises emissions rather than reducing them. No-one with the slightest interest in the issue should be happy with this, and if Bill English is, then it suggests that he doesn't actually care about our future at all. Which given his previous history of virulent climate change denialism, sadly isn't surprising.

Good riddance

Well, that was exciting, wasn't it? Two mediocre male Green MPs told the party "its Metiria or us", and were quickly and efficiently shown the door. Despite trying to roll it back for a bit on RNZ - "no, we didn't quit, we're candidates till writ day", they'll likely be suspended from caucus tomorrow and ejected from the party in short order. Because that's what happens when you pull that sort of stunt: you either win or you die.

Graham and Clendon were a poor fit for the Greens anyway. Back in 2010 they voted for Manukau to be allowed to jail prostitutes again - the only two Green MPs who did so. The rest of the party understand that sustainability and social justice and human rights go hand-in-hand, and you can't throw one of them overboard without harming the whole - a view which also resonates with the vast majority of their voters. Insofar as Graham and Clendon now seem wildly out of step with the party and its support-base, its probably better that they go (though obviously, it would have been better if they'd gone quietly, rather than trying to burn everything down in the process).

The net effect is that a bunch of talented candidates - including Chloe Swarbrick, Golriz Ghahraman, Jack McDonald and John Hart - will move up a place or two on the list and become that much more electable. Which isn't a bad outcome. The great thing about the Greens is that they have more talented people than they have space for. Dead-weights ritually throwing themselves overboard simply makes room for someone better.