The Daily Blog Open Mic – Saturday 16th February 2019

1. A very important post on No Right Turn:
   http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-law-means-nothing.html

   This is stuff to digest for all those who care about the Official Information Act 1982, and how useful that legislation is, especially in view of the Public Records Act, which is not that well adhered to by the public service in New Zealand:
   https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/75647486/null

   So the Chief Archivist lets off a senior public servant who is alleged to have deleted phone recordings he had of a conversation with a Minister at the time.

   I heard of other appalling stuff regarding public records not being kept, or simply being deleted, concerns were also raised with the Ombudsman:
   https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ombudsman-complaint-3xxxxx-msd-o-i-a-fr-16-01-14-bratt-presentations-anon-ltr-13-06-15.pdf
   https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ombudsman-complaint-msd-o-i-a-rqst-16-01-14-dr-bratt-presentation-info-hilit-dec-23-06-15.pdf

   https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ombudsman-complaint-abt-dr-bratt-deleting-emails-refusal-to-investigate-r-paterson-17-08-15.pdf
   https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ombudsman-complaint-dr-bratt-deleted-emails-refusal-to-investigate-r-paterson-hilit-17-08-15.pdf

   Archives NZ or the Chief Archivist was also approached, but did not bother to hold MSD to account for serious enough concerns over record keeping issues with one of their Senior Advisors (a Dr David Bratt, following a ‘firm’ approach on work ability assessments and so).

   So public servants not keeping records they should keep under the Public Records Act, and who may in some cases even delete such public records, they get away with it in supposedly so ‘uncorrupt’ NZ Inc..

   • Extract from letter found via first link above (paragraph [15] page 5):
     “I can inform you that the same issue was raised with the Chief Archivist Marilyn Little, and I will attach correspondence in that matter to this letter, which I will also send to you by email. One of her response letters was dated xx March 2015, and on that same day she wrote to Mr Brendan Boyle, also providing the Ministry with the applicable General Disposal Authorities (GDA) for records management and maintenance in the public service. I presume
     I have not received the guidance you mention in your letter from MSD, as they seem to assume, that I have them already. A second letter from Marilyn Little is dated xx April this year, and regrettably sees no reason to further investigate the contradictions I observed
     in comments received from MSD in this matter.

     I strongly suggest your Office of Ombudsmen looks into this, as there are so many conflicting claims and comments on record
     now, none of them appear to reveal the whole truth about what records Dr Bratt kept of his communications and correspondence with Professor Mansel Aylward and with Dr David Beaumont. I strongly suggest you consult with the Chief Archivist at Archives New Zealand
     about what action to take, to establish what has really gone on at Dr Bratt’s Office.”

     But later the Ombudsman would do nothing, simply refer the complainant to address various issues with the Chief Executive at MSD!? And Archives New Zealand or the Chief Archivist could not be bothered to investigate, as mentioned above.

     So watch dogs are busy watching away, looking away, so they see no evil and hear no evil, so they can say there is nothing, and they will not investigate.

     In other places this would be called something close to being corrupt or biased towards the establishment, in NZ Inc. it is totally acceptable.

2. From comments blocked at The Standard

   How corrupt is Donald Trump?

   Is there anything that the President wouldn’t do?

   Republican commentator Peter Wehner weighs in

   The Full-Spectrum Corruption of Donald Trump
   Everyone and everything he touches rots.

   There’s never been any confusion about the character defects of Donald Trump. The question has always been just how far he would go and whether other individuals and institutions would stand up to him or become complicit in his corruption.

   …….Corruption has been evident in Mr. Trump’s private and public life, in how he has treated his wives, in his business dealings and scams, in his pathological lying and cruelty, in his bullying and shamelessness, in his conspiracy-mongering and appeals to the darkest impulses of Americans…..

   …..Some of us who have been lifelong Republicans and previously served in Republican administrations held out a faint hope that our party would at some point say “Enough!”; that there would be some line Mr. Trump would cross, some boundary he would transgress, some norm he would shatter, some civic guardrail he would uproot, some action he would take, some scheme or scandal he would be involved in that would cause large numbers of Republicans to break with the president. No such luck. Mr. Trump’s corruptions have therefore become theirs. So far there’s been no bottom, and there may never be.

   https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/opinion/sunday/corruption-donald-trump.html

   That “bottom” may just have been reached, and passed by, with barely a murmur of protest from the Republican Party. Leading Republicans, including Senate leader Mitch McConnell who had previously warned Trump against declaring a State Of National Emergency . But in the end, along with the rest of the Republican establishment, O’Connell went along with Trump’s demand to put the country under a state of emergency.

   The President is now left to look for a new “bottom”, that the Republicans will support

   The fact that after declaring a State of National Emergency the President then went to his golf course for the weekend, indicates that his declaration of a state of National Emergency is more of a personal insurance policy against impeachment than any real or imagined national emergency.

   Will the Republican leaders and party support the President if using his new powers the President over rules Congress, or shuts down or turns aside the investigations into his personal and business affairs?

   The Republican Party controlled Senate, tame acquiescence, despite muttering their faint disapproval, indicates that they will allow any anti-democratic or extra-legal outrage from the President.

3. Finally some action on the cruel treatment of animals at rodeos.
   I hope after Labour’s timid response on firming up the animal rights act they back Gareth Hughes on this.
   This reaction from Scoop.
   http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1902/S00120/bill-aiming-to-ban-rodeo-cruelty-welcomed-by-safe.htm

4. My earlier contribution highlighted in raw news feed.

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