With all the heat, noise and media attention on Jacindamania and Metiria’s political assassination, important news stories that really spell out the deficiencies and hollowness of National’s political agenda are being lost in the noise.
Here are the top 10.
10 – State sanctioned spying on Greenpeace
As predicted by TDB, the mass surveillance powers rammed through by the Government under urgency with just 1 vote are being used against environmental activists. Startling news that Greenpeace have not only been spied on but that the spying is backed by the Government…
Greenpeace boss Russel Norman is calling on the Government to “categorically deny” any involvement with a surveillance campaign targeting the environmental lobby group.
Greenpeace says it has caught spies in the act, tracking and photographing staff and volunteers and filed litigation against the private investigation company it claims is organising it.
“The information received suggests the New Zealand Government has also been involved,” said Norman, a former Green MP.
Norman said Greenpeace did not know who the source was but said they had been able to verify other information the source provided.
…as TDB understands it, the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment is paying well known dirty ops team Thompson & Clark for information on Greenpeace and other state intelligence agencies are using that information to strengthen their own surveillance agenda against the wider environmental movement.
It is outrageous in the extreme that such surveillance would be supported and backed by the state and that the information being sourced is then being passed along to our intelligence agencies.
9 – Paula Bennett promises to protect whistleblowers after publicly crucifying beneficiaries who blew the whistle on her?
Hilariously Paula Bennett is promising to protect whistleblowers in the wake of the madness at the Ministry of Transport that saw staff sacked for discovering corruption…
State Services Minister Paula Bennett is promising to protect those who speak out against fraud. “I’m open to changing the law if it’s not working, ’cause I think it’s really important that we have integrity and transparency in our public services,” Ms Bennett told 1 NEWS.
…this claim of protecting whistleblowers is an absurd hypocrisy when Paula Bennett released the personal details of beneficiaries who called out her draconian welfare policies and then despite a ruling by the Human Rights Commission against her stated she would breach their privacy again to punish them going public.
It is equally absurd having these assurances of protecting whistleblowers when right now there is a whistleblower with allegations against Paula Bennett committing welfare fraud who is being gagged…
8 – Bill English can’t comprehend why people are complaining about homelessness
This story just didn’t receive the contempt it deserved…
Bill English says he doesn’t understand why people are unhappy the Government is spending $140,000 a day on emergency accommodation for the homeless.
The housing crisis is on track to cost the Government $50 million on motels and other “short-term measures” a year, but the Prime Minister says there’s little else that can be done.
“If they’re not in the motels, they haven’t got anywhere warm and dry to live,” he told The AM Show on Monday morning.
“I don’t know why people are complaining about this. It’s a short-term measure, it’s necessary. We’re not doing it to put them on holiday.”
…he can’t understand why we are complaining about his Government’s feckless and pathetic response to homelessness???
Really Bill?
In 9 years your Government has created…
- Generations locked out of home ownership
- Hundreds of thousands forced to live in over crowded and illegal housing
- Thousands of families living in cars
- 41 000 homeless
- 1600 dying each year from the cold
- mass budget blow outs to put the homeless into motels
- privatised state housing
…and why has the Government purposely created this situation? They have purposely fed a speculative housing bubble fuelled on mass immigration and fake education programs to keep the middle classes convinced they are millionaires to maintain power.
Bill’s ‘why are you complaining’ line is as ugly as it is obscene.
7 – Environmental Protection Agency protects a mining corporation rather than the environment
Our Environmental Protection Agency is there to protect the bloody environment, not protect mining corporation profit margins…
the EPA’s decision, which was strongly opposed by local communities, iwi, environmental groups and others, will allow TTRL to mine up to 50 million tonnes of iron sand each year for 35 years from a 66 square kilometre area of sea floor in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone (provided all consent conditions can be met)
…apart from the fact that this is a terrible ruling based on a total misreading of the policy, watching agencies tasked with protecting our environment protect the mining companies instead should be a deep embarrassment that leads the nightly news for a week.
6 – NZ Prison violence out of control
Take a long hard look at the above image folks, that’s a NZ prisoner who had his skull bashed in and it highlights the culture of violence that is now all pervasive in our over crowded and racist prison system…
Nicotine patches given to prisoners to help them quit smoking have become highly-valued tradable commodities – leading to standovers and bullying.
The finding is contained in a damning Ombudsman report on Spring Hill prison. It also found a third of inmates claimed to have been assaulted and half feel unsafe.
There is also a “pervasive influence” at the prison of new psychoactive substances that mimic the effects of drugs such as cannabis and heroin, the report states, and nicotine patches had become a “highly-tradable” commodity resulting in bullying and standovers.
…National’s get tough on crime knee jerks exacerbated Labour’s get tough on crime rhetoric and created a prison industry that makes money from incarceration and uses flawed parole rule changes to keep prisoners locked up in prison without rehabilitation for longer and longer.
We have built a prison system based on fear, anger and spite that produces human beings more damaged coming out than they were going in.
5 – Unemployment stats are rigged
After raising this as an issue on TDB for 3 years, the truth about the way our unemployment stats are rigged has finally been exposed by the mainstream media…
The official unemployment rate in New Zealand has hit an eight-year low of 4.8 percent.
Sounds impressive, right? Sounds like the kind of employment environment where the worker rules – where there is little competition for jobs, and bosses are so desperate for workers they are offering great salaries and benefits.
But the 4.8 percent unemployment statistic is not telling the full story.
There are 1 million New Zealanders not in jobs and not counted in either the unemployment or employment rate. Many of the 1 million people ‘not in the labour force’ are doing things like studying or caring for a family member.
…we have been told our rock star economy is performing for everyone, the truth is that it is not and the offical stats used to measure this are deeply flawed.
4 – Historic abuse by the State still ignored
The way National have avoided any attempt at an inquiry into the historic abuse of NZers by the State continues to bubble along, especially with the latest example of abuse at a bootcamp makes the news…
The former minister for Child, Youth and Family says her department “funded” the abuse of young people at a boot camp on Great Barrier Island.
…how the National Government can protect the abusers and ignore the abused and still remain in power is a judgment on us as a people.
3 – The Poor lose a champion
The most tragic part of the rich white male broadcaster clique who destroyed Metiria was that the most vulnerable amongst us was robbed of a voice…
…while the rich white male broadcaster clique congratulated themselves and crowed over who could take credit for Metiria resigning, those who have been most damaged by our neoliberal welfare state had their champion silenced.
2 – ACT vs National
ACT – a one trick pony running out of pony’s
There is an undeclared civil war erupting between ACT and National. Steven Joyce leaked on the weekend current affairs shows that ACT is trailing National in Epsom and in response David Seymour publicly attacked National’s law and order policy.
TDB understands that National strategists are now questioning the wisdom of allowing ACT a free hand in Epsom when the 1% party vote ACT take could be the difference between National forming a Government or not in a close election.
1 – Auditor-general report still secret
The fact that the report into the jaw dropping incompetence of allowing an incompetent bureaucrat become the Auditor-General is still being hidden from the public…
In her valedictory speech at Parliament last night, Labour MP Sue Moroney, who originally revealed the fraud, called on Mr Carter to release the report.
Ms Moroney said while Harrison had wrecked many lives, she didn’t want the next reputation she wrecked to be Parliament’s.
“My advice to future Parliaments is simple – if you have to go to the Serious Fraud Office to satisfy yourselves about the person you’re about to appoint as Auditor-General, then they are almost certainly the wrong person for the job.”
Ms Moroney said she’d had to fight the “old boys network and the Wellington mafia over the Auditor-General’s appointment”.
Former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer said the public deserved a better explanation for why the report was not being made public.
…it is just further proof that our public service have lost their soul under the neoliberal culture that is now promoted and is in desperate need of a culture reform if a change of Government comes in.
Labour are simply too compromised by their fear of the PSA to do anything meaningful about changing the culture in our neoliberal welfare agencies and our only hope to purge the neoliberal culture out of our welfare agencies will fall to NZ First and the Greens.
Thanks Martyn. An effective summary.
Good stuff.
Definitely sounds like a litany of causes that will explain the coming civil war to me… I think you missed a few, but damn… ain’t the truth a…
Bruh. As Karl Marx once said-“for revolution to be successful it must come from a big wig country”-
Today there is only 1 super power. America, who are currently embroiled in a race war.
And get yourself some smarter friends.
Don’t forget the Indian student visa scams… tip of the iceberg apparently
An excellent round-up, Martyn and I’ll be sharing it on FB and elsewhere. It’s depressing how most New Zealanders are totally oblivious to National’s rorts. Mind you, this is helped by a media that is asleep at the wheel, it seems
Psychotic sociopaths can be relied on to act in ways that benefit psychotic sociopaths.
Fascists can be relied to act in ways that benefit fascists.
Corporations can be relied on to act in ways that benefit corporations.
Banks can be relied on to act in ways that benefit banks.
Politicians can be relied on to act in ways that benefit politicians.
It’s the system we endure.
Excellent piece of journalism there Martyn, this should be mainstream news. There was a time when Kiwis wouldnt put up with any of this shocking stuff. Why anyone would want to vote National is beyond comprehension #changeThegovt
“Labour are simply too compromised by their fear of the PSA ”
Now when did that happen?
Ever since the 1990s, when assorted governments gutted the union movement, membership of the PSA has been dropping. There seems to be more life in E Tu than the docile PSA.
If the numbers coming out about pay rates are ‘true’ – then the public sector is being better remunerated than the private. And National is on the Treasury benches. Hmm. A touch of prudence? Buying a blind eye and a stopped mouth? Do we know, at all?
I, too, wonder if Labour will face the monster of its own making. When it created State Owned Enterprises and appointed the like of Rod Deane. The gentlemen pirates with that aura of business knowhow that wasn’t quite as good as they spruiked. When it gutted and malformed what had worked, even through hard times.
Until Labour not only apologises for the enormous harm it allowed to happen to far too many working people in this country, and continued to permit to exist; until it rehabilitates the New Zealand public services – it remains part of the problem and not a hope for the future.
I suspect that if Andrew Little had been willing to say in public the same things about Rogernomics that he said in private, he would still be Labour leader. I also suspect he would be achieving the same polling Labour has achieved under Jacinda, but at the expense of NZ First, instead of the Greens. I would love to see Jacinda publicly renounce Rogernomics and Blairism, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
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