The reality of Brexit

When the racists were campaigning for Brexit, they promised a financial windfall, with £350 million a week extra for the NHS. Now, the government is reduced to promising that there will be "adequete food supplies":

In testimony to the Brexit select committee on Tuesday, the minister dismissed claims that the government was stockpiling provisions. However, he acknowledged that it would work with the food industry to ensure that a no-deal outcome would not disrupt supply.

“We will look at this issue in the round and make sure that there’s adequate food supplies,” Raab told the Brexit select committee. “It would be wrong to describe it as the government doing the stockpiling … of course the idea that we only get food imports into this country from one continent is not appropriate.”

And that's what Brexit means: a real threat that an entire nation will starve to death, or have to have rationing imposed, so that rich arseholes like Jacob Reese-Mogg can make out like bandits. But hey, at least EDL members won't have to see Polish plumbers any more, right?

Reported back

The Health Committee has reported back on the government's Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill, and been unable to reach a decision. Which is what happens when you have a select committee split 4-4 between Labour and National: it becomes dysfunctional and is unable to reach a decision over any substantive policy issue. So, instead the final shape of the law will be resolved at the committee stage, by ad-hoc amendment, which means we won't know what it will look like until the third reading.

National's major objection seemed to be that the bill didn't ban the terminally ill from being allowed to (gasp!) smoke cannabis for medical reasons. Which is something almost universally supported by New Zealand society. So they've proposed their own bill which would ban this, while imposing punitive restrictions on cannabis growing licensees to prevent people who know how to grow cannabis from going legit. It does have wider eligibility for use, and puts the licensed user regime in statute rather than regulation, but there's a core of punitive nastiness in there which is just pure National. And no doubt they'll be hoping to get the reactionaries in NZ First to go along with it (though the fact that the average NZ First voter is old, and old people use cannabis medicinally too might be a check on this).

Hopefully the sensible parts of National's bill will be stolen and added to the government one at the committee stage, and the punitive bits dumped. But we might see this bill fail, and sick people condemned to being criminalised, because of spoiling behaviour by the opposition.

If this is "victory", what would defeat look like?

When the Free Speech Coalition was formed, they promised to stand up for freedom of expression (even that of Nazis). Now, they're dropping their urgent case against Auckland Council:

The Free Speech Coalition has withdrawn its request for urgent orders and a hearing on Auckland Mayor Phil Goff's decision to ban two right-wing Canadians from council venues, it says.

The so-called Free Speech Coalition crowd-funded tens of thousands of dollars to launch the court action, which was in response to Canadians Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux being prevented from using the Bruce Mason Centre for an upcoming speaking event.

In a press release, the coalition said it was withdrawing the action because it had achieved "victory".

The coalition said its main purpose for next Monday's hearing had gone because the council had conceded that mayor Phil Goff did not make the decision and that it was in fact made by Regional Facilities Auckland.

Except that that's not actually "victory". "Victory" would be a ruling from the court saying that the Council's decision was unlawful and that it can not use "health and safety" and a heckler's veto as a pretext to discriminate on political grounds in its venue decisions. Instead, they didn't even try arguing that, because in fact they support discrimination, at least when it comes to gay people. But then, its difficult to escape the impression that for many of them this was never about free speech at all, but about finding some way to attack their ideological enemy, Phil Goff. And now they can't sue him, they've simply lost interest. As for the actual principle at stake, well, that's been pushed back into the never-never, and they'll probably lose interest in that too. After all, its not as if the likes of Stephen Franks, Don Brash, David Farrar and Jordan Williams have ever been consistent supporters of freedom of expression...

I don't like Nazis, but tolerating them is the cost of a free and democratic society, the cost of the right of all of us to speak out and try and change things. And that right has been compromised. If you're happy with that, you might want to think about the precedent it sets: that a threat by people to protest against an event justifies its suppression. To point out the obvious, Nazis can also protest, and you are supporting their right to shut down progressive speech. And that doesn't seem like either a liberal or progressive position to hold.

Members' Day

Today is a Members' Day, and it looks like the log-jam of later stages is finally beginning to clear. First up there's the third reading of Jan Logie's Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill, which looks certain to pass. After that there's the second reading of Parmjeet Parmar's Newborn Enrolment with General Practice Bill. And if the House gets through those, then it should have time to wrap up the first reading of her Patents (Advancement Patents) Amendment Bill, and might make a start on Todd Muller's Companies (Clarification of Dividend Rules in Companies) Amendment Bill (a classic "what matters to rich people" bill from National). And if that happens, there might even be a ballot tomorrow.

Willfull blindness

An OIA request on FYI has exposed another government agency collaboration with Thompson and Clak. This time its AgResearch, who hired them from 2006 to April 2016 to provide "risk management reporting on animal rights and GE-related issues". During that time, TCIL provided a "media scan" and other reports, and was "involved in nearly every controversial project undertaken by the Institute".

AgResearch says they didn't ask TCIL to spy for them. But given the numerous public scandals around this firm's infiltration and spying on activists, this can only be described as willfull blindness on a level similar to MI6's around CIA torture. Infiltration and spying is what Thompson and Clark do. It is what they are for. And AgResearch hiring them is effectively asking them to spy, to infiltrate, and to plant unlawful surveillance devices on people's cars.

The good news is that AgResearch dumped them in 2016, apparently due to lower risk. But the fact they hired them at all is troubling, and hopefully will be examined by the SSC's inquiry.

New Fisk

I traced missile casings in Syria back to their original sellers, so it’s time for the west to reveal who they sell arms to

Murderous Tories

Civilised countries don't extradite people to be murdered, and the UK, as part of its pretence to be a civilised country, supposedly has a consistent opposition to the death penalty. Except, apparently, when the Americans want to murder UK citizens:

Senior MPs of all parties have condemned the decision to allow two murderous British Isis fighters to face the death penalty in the United States – as the government admitted it had also secretly lifted objections in previous cases.

Ministers faced a furious backlash after confirming they had not demanded a “no execution” assurance in return for handing over the jihadis, the remaining members of the “Beatles” group.

The move was branded “abhorrent and shameful”, with warnings the UK would be guilty of “arrant hypocrisy” the next time it urged any other country to abandon the death penalty.

[...]

At one point, [security minister Ben] Wallace said he had “respect” for countries that allowed the death penalty, although it is UK policy to oppose it worldwide.

Significantly, the minister revealed that Britons had been sent abroad in the past with no block on use of the death penalty, agreeing to supply MPs with details “for your summer reading”.

So, senior UK government Ministers are secret death penalty supporters, who have repeatedly extradited UK citizens to be murdered in foreign countries. That's something UKanians should find intolerable. They should be demanding this Minister - and government's - (metaphorical) head, and demanding that UK law categorically forbid extradition in death penalty cases.

(If you're wondering what the situation is in New Zealand, the Extradition Act allows the government to refuse extradition in death penalty cases, but does not require it. Pretty obviously, we need to fix this, to prevent spineless Ministers from doing a Britain and compromising our values in order to grovel to murderous foreign powers).

Transparency from the Greens

The Greens today have kept their promise of ministerial transparency, releasing their ministers' diaries for the last quarter:

The Green Party today released its ministerial diaries showing its co-leader met with Gas New Zealand in April to discuss the government's ban on future offshore oil and gas exploration.

The diaries show party co-leader James Shaw met with Gas New Zealand in April to discuss the implications of the ban and today released the quarterly diaries of its ministers and under-secretary as promised earlier this year.

The diaries were released for the party's three ministers, and one under-secretary.

They state who the meeting was with, the date it was held and a very brief description of the reason for the meeting.

If you're interested in trawling through them, you can read them here. If you're curious about a particular meeting, you can request further details under the OIA. I recommend using FYI for this, so everyone can see both the response, and how the request is handled (its a great tool for forcing agencies to behave by automatically publicising bad behaviour).

Of course, this raises an obvious question: when will "the most transparent government ever" follow suit? Or are they going to let themselves be shamed by the Greens on transparency?

More Australian corruption

Another Australian state MP is quitting after being caught behaving corruptly:

Voters in the NSW Riverina will head to the polls twice in a matter of months after Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced disgraced Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire would resign from state parliament.

Mr Maguire last week quit the Liberal Party and his role as parliamentary secretary, after a corruption inquiry heard secret recordings of him discussing potential commissions with a local councillor from property deals with a wealthy Chinese developer.

But a defiant Mr Maguire had until now refused to quit NSW politics, saying he would remain in Parliament until the March 2019 state election.

On Saturday afternoon, Ms Berejiklian said Mr Maguire would resign some time next week, before Parliament resumes on August 7. A byelection will be held in the seat of Wagga Wagga, Ms Berejiklian said.

It is good that he has been forced to resign. But if he has behaved criminally, then he needs to be prosecuted, and if convicted, jailed.

New Fisk

The Syrian war is a 'shame to mankind' says Serbia's top weapons maker – but I found his instruction books in eastern Aleppo

Immigration NZ's racism problem

Last week, Immigration NZ quite properly granted visitor visas to a pair of foreign Nazis, because there was no lawful reason to refuse them. Meanwhile, they're refusing to grant visas to visiting human rights activists:

The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is meeting in Auckland in early August to discuss projects and policy. It campaigns against human rights abuses, particularly from religious influences, and has representatives at the European Union and United Nations.

Gulalai Ismail from Pakistan has been campaigning since she was 14 for girls' rights to education and women's rights. She has faced death threats and been attacked more than once, but continued her work from outside the country, Humanist Society of NZ president Sara Passmore said.

Ismail's visa application was made after mid-April, but has not had confirmation it has been granted, and two Immigration offices had given contradictory answers about its status. Another board member had been denied entry, one was still awaiting an answer, and another was initially denied and only granted a visa after a lawyer interceded.

All four do work to make their countries and the world a better place, and were all "heroes" in their own right. The response from Immigration NZ was a shock, and "embarrassing for New Zealand", she said.

In both cases, the applicants want to come to New Zealand to speak publicly - the Nazis at their travelling hate show, the human rights activists at an international conference. So why the difference in treatment? Well, the Nazis are from Canada, while the human rights activists are from places with serious human rights problems: Pakistan, Uganda, and Nigeria. And obviously, the only reason anyone from such a country could ever want to come to New Zealand is to live here, and that prior assumption from Immigration means that they discount all evidence to the contrary. Alternatively, we could put it more simply: the Nazis are white...

While the immediate call here is for the Minister to intervene to make sure these people get visas and the conference can go ahead, Immigration obviously has a deep-seated racism problem, and the Minister needs to root it out. It is not appropriate for race, or any proxy for race, to play a role in immigration decisions.

The UK uses child spies

British police and intelligence agencies are using children as spies:

British police and intelligence agencies are using children as spies in covert operations against terrorists, gangs and drug dealers.

A committee of the House of Lords revealed the practice while raising the alarm over government plans to give law enforcement bodies more freedom over their use of children.

Some of the child spies are aged under 16, the committee says, adding that it was worried about proposals to extend from one month to four the period of time between each occasion that child spies go through a re-registration process.

This isn't using children as informants or witnesses - its actually using them as covert, undercover agents in a criminal or terrorist environment. Which raises obvious child welfare and legal issues. Pretty obviously, it raises questions about whether the UK is complying with its duty under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to ensure that best interests of the child is the primary consideration in any decision about them. And in anti-terrorist operations, it raises questions about whether the UK is complying with its duties under UNCROC's First Optional Protocol on the recruitment of children in armed conflict.

More generally, the use of children as soldiers is a war crime. Shouldn't this also apply to using children as spies?

Fuck Australia

The Australians are pissed off at Andrew Little for calling them out on their deportation policy and treatment of kiwis. And Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton thinks Little should "reflect" on the NZ-Australia relationship before criticising our neighbours. I think we should reflect on it too, because there's a lot to criticise.

Where to start? Their shittiness to kiwis is the least of it. The Australian government is full of racists. Their political system is irredeemably corrupt, and their federal politicans refuse to try and clean it up out of fear they'll lose their slice of the pie. They spy on their neighbours, and prosecute those who blow the whistle on them. They have authoritarian espionage laws which in practice target journalists. Their treatment of their indigenous people is appalling. They stick refugees in concentration camps where they are abused and neglected.

Whenever our politicians meet, they talk a lot about how the relationship is built on "shared values". I don't see a lot that we share. Racism is not a kiwi value. Corruption is not a kiwi value. Authoritarianism and cruelty are not kiwi values. The values we take pride in - compassion, fairness, justice, honesty, democracy - are values Australia is walking away from. They're even walking away from their supposed "mateship". They're no longer the sort of country a modern democracy can or should count as a friend.

As their closest neighbour and oldest friend, this is something we should be speaking out against, not keeping silent on. And if they don't like that, then fuck Australia.

Also, if you don't like what Australia has become or the way it treats people, then vote with your wallet and don't buy Australian. Don't give your money to these arseholes until they change for the better.

Labour lied on refugees

When they were in opposition, Labour advocated for an increased refugee quota. When they were running for election, they explicitly promised to raise it to 1,500 a year. But now they're in government, they're saying that we're full:

The Government has stalled on plans to double New Zealand's refugee quota - and it's because of the housing crisis.

Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says Aotearoa need to sort that before it thinks about welcoming more refugees.

[...]

"What we have to do is make sure we've got the capacity to take those extra people."

Translation: we just don't have enough homes.

For context, the promised increase in the refugee quota is less than one percent of net immigration, and it would be completely buried by this year's decrease. So Lees-Galloway's "justification" isn't especially convincing. But more importantly, there will always be problems in New Zealand, but that's no excuse to ignore the greater problems of the wider world. Refugees are in desperate need, and we are nowhere near to doing our bit for them (we take fewer refugees per capita than the much-reviled Australians, for example). Labour promised to move part of the way towards correcting that, to be a more compassionate government than their predecessors. Sadly, it looks like they were just fucking lying to us, as usual.

New Fisk

A Bosnian signs off weapons he says are going to Saudi Arabia – but how did his signature turn up in Aleppo?

A victory for European justice

A week ago, a German court rejected the extradition of exiled Catalan President Carles Puigdemont on "rebellion" charges. He could be extradited for "misuse of public funds", but not for "rebellion" as there was no equivalent offence in German law (Germany requires actual or planned violence, not peaceful protest and democratic advocacy. The idea of a peaceful "rebellion" is nonsensical). And now, as expected, Spain is having a legal temper-tantrum and has withdrawn the European Arrest Warrants against all the exiled Catalan politicians:

A Spanish judge has dropped the international arrest warrants issued for the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and five other pro-sovereignty politicians over their roles in last year’s illegal referendum and subsequent unilateral declaration of independence.

[...]

The dropping of the international warrant means Puigdemont and his former colleagues – currently in Belgium, Scotland and Switzerland – no longer face extradition proceedings. But domestic warrants remain in force, meaning the six will be arrested should they return to Spain.

In his ruling, published on Thursday, Llarena hit out at the court in Schleswig-Holstein, accusing it of “a lack of commitment” over acts that could have “broken Spain’s constitutional order”. The German court’s refusal to extradite Puigdemont on the rebellion charge – which prosecutors had argued could be equated to “high treason” in the German penal code – meant the deposed president could not be tried for the offence if sent back to Spain.

That offence - again, for purely democratic actions taken and backed by the Catalan Parliament - is really all Spain wants to charge him with. The "misuse of public funds" charge is a smokescreen, and even the Spanish government says it didn't happen. But now Spain is being denied its show trial. No wonder they're upset.

Unfortunately, Spain is still holding nine Catalan political leaders as political prisoners on similar trumped-up charges. And they'll probably take out their anger on them.

Doomed?

Good news from Nelson: the Waimea dam project - the one National wants to pass a Muldoonist Enabling Act to rip land out of a forest park for - has escalated in price and looks doomed:

Updated costs for the proposed Waimea dam have added a whopping $26 million to its bottom line, putting the future of the controversial project in doubt.

"Unless a solution can be found to close the gap, the dam won't go ahead," Tasman district mayor Richard Kempthorne told a media briefing on Thursday morning. "There is no doubt this is a major setback and possibly the greatest challenge yet for the project."

A long-time supporter of the dam as the best option to augment the water supply for Waimea, Kempthorne said he was "gutted" by the updated figures, which represent a 35 per cent escalation in costs.

Good riddance. The conservation estate is for conservation, not building dams, while the resulting intensified farming (in part driven by the need to pay irrigation fees) will only lead to dirtier rivers. The sooner this project is cancelled, the better.

A curious absence

The Free Speech Coalition has filed its suit against Phil Goff and the Auckland Council over their cancellation of a Nazi event, seeking to have the decision overturned. But reading the statement of claim, there's an odd omission: while they cite a variety of administrative law reasons and breach of sections 14 - 17 (freedom of expression, religion, assembly and association) of the Bill of Rights Act as reasons to overturn the decision, for some reason they don't include their strongest case: breach of the right to freedom from discrimination on the basis of political opinion. Its alluded to in passing when suggesting that Goff unlawfully directed the decision, but not otherwise mentioned. I'm not sure whether this is because they felt it would be difficult to prove, or because several of the Coalition's backers (e.g. Stephen Franks) are ideologically opposed to anti-discrimination legislation, but given that they're throwing the kitchen sink at it elsewhere, its a curious absence.

They've requested an urgent hearing and interim orders allowing the event to proceed, though whether they get it is another question. Still, hopefully we'll have a ruling and some clarification on local authority powers and freedom of speech soon.

Another transparency failure

Last month, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones claimed he had received 365 text messages supporting his criticism of Fonterra. But surprisingly, he's refusing to release them under the OIA:

Self-styled "provincial champion" Jones launched a blistering attack on the long-serving dairy co-operative boss last month. Defending his remarks, Jones then claimed 365 people had sent messages supporting his stance.

But the NZ First Minister is now refusing to release those text messages. And that raises questions about the Government's official record-keeping processes.

"The messages I was referring to were received predominantly on my private phone and not in my capacity as a Minister. They therefore do not fall within the scope within the scope of the Official Information Act 1982," Jones said in a letter to Stuff.

As the article points out, that's bullshit. Its not the phone that matters, but the capacity the messages were received in. And when they are supposedly received in response to a statement made as a Minister, that capacity can only be as a Minister. Meaning that they are official information and covered by the Act.

Perhaps in recognition of this, Jones' office is now claiming that releasing them would require "substantial collation and research". Not really. Or rather, as Jones is claiming to have counted them, then he already knows which messages they are, which means most of the work is already done. While there will obviously be substantial work required to redact the identifying details from these messages, that is not part of the "collation and research" process and cannot be used as a reason for refusal.

Of course, the real reason for the request isn't so much the content of the texts, but that a response will show the public whether Jones actually received that level of public support, or whether he was just big-mouthing himself. And that's probably the reason for the refusal as well. But while relatively inconsequential, its another failure of transparency by this government, and another example of how they are all talk and no action on this issue.

When police investigate police

Another IPCA report is out today, this time into an officer's use of pepper spray in a police cell. The inquiry found that the officer's actions were unjustified, in breach of police policy, and unlawful. So there's the obvious question again: why wasn't the officer charged? Interestingly, his fellow police officers thought his actions were so beyond the pale that the police were forced to launch a criminal investigation. But rather than recommend prosecution, it decided the officer's actions were "commendable". As for the quality of that investigation, and a subsequent employment investigation, the IPCA had this to say:

The Authority considers that both Police investigations failed to critically and objectively analyse the evidence and, therefore, the findings (that Officer H’s actions were justified and lawful, and did not amount to misconduct) are unsustainable when measured against the provisions of sections 39 and 48 of the Crimes Act 1961 and Police policy.

In light of our findings, the Authority finds it particularly disturbing that the criminal investigation concluded that Officer H’s actions were commendable.

But that's what happens when police investigate police. And its precisely why we need to give the IPCA the ability to launch its own prosecutions: because even in egregious cases like this, the police are clearly incapable of enforcing the law against themselves.