The Daily Blog Open Mic Monday 6th April 2015

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openmike

 

Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

Moderation rules are more lenient for this section, but try and play nicely.

 

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6 COMMENTS

  1. State control Alert!!! Go Otago Daily Times! Who is the mystery employee and who does he/she report too…. We can all guess I’m sure where the end reporting lies….

    Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy was advised to ignore calls and don’t answer the phone following concerns raised over foreign drivers.

    Last month, the Otago Daily Times requested an interview with the commissioner after publishing a story on a Dunedin man who snatched keys from a foreign driver.

    Following her refusal to front, the ODT filed an Official Information Act (OIA) request for all documents received or sent by the commissioner on the topic.

    The first email, from an undisclosed employee of the Human Rights Commission immediately following the OIA request, advised the commissioner to “ignore calls and don’t answer phone”.

    “Media are after you for comment on foreign drivers getting keys taken off them … we really don’t want to get into this … Police have had their say, PM is all over it etc etc so we are best to leave it at this.”

    A follow-up email to the commissioner said: “I want to keep comments from me so that you are not seen to be commenting on this issue at all … Right now we’ve had no complaints and it’s an operational policing issue that needs to be sorted out at that level immediately, it is also anecdotal with a lot of media hype.”

    • @SAVE NZ & Pasupial – I did read this article this morning and almost immediately the alarms bells began going off rather loudly! At first I though it was me, being the cynical, suspicious old bird I am. But I’m pleased to see it’s been picked up by others, such as yourselves.

      There has to be something scurrilous behind this, for Devoy in her position to be told to keep quiet about the issue!

      Who is the HRC employee involved here and even more importantly WHO is the person at the heart of the matter? Could this be yet another state controlled cover up, protecting someone in a high ranking position of responsibility?

      All very strange and covert. Though not entirely out of sync with this government’s dirty activities!

  2. Paul Henry, mouthpiece for National’s Dirty Politics and nastiness starts in less than a day. My mornings will be ruined.

  3. former Labor party official suspected of joining the fight against Islamic State, was detained upon his return to Darwin…
    a 43-year-old former Australian army combat engineer and medic who reportedly went to help Kurdish fighters against Isis in northern Syria.

    Despite the Australian government having armed Kurds against Isis, any Australian citizen who joins the combat risks being prosecuted under the Crimes (Foreign Incursion and Recruitment) Act of 1978…

    A spokesperson for the attorney general, George Brandis, told the ABC it was “illegal to fight in Syria for either side of the conflict”.

    “If you fight illegally in overseas conflicts, you face up to life in prison upon your return to Australia,” the spokesperson said.

    “We know there are some Australians who think they’ve made the right choice in becoming involved in overseas conflicts, but that choice only adds to the suffering in Syria and Iraq and it’s putting those Australians and others in mortal danger.”

    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/apr/05/former-labor-official-suspected-of-fighting-against-islamic-state-detained

    Of course it is only private citizens who add; “adds to the suffering in Syria and Iraq”. The imminent invasion by the USA and its ANZAC sock puppets could never have such a result..

    This, it seems to me, is about the government trying to control the image risks of their military action. If this is the reaction to a trained medic interacting in an unsupervised way with the kurdish people, I can only imagine what unembedded journalists will face when they return from the warzone.

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