Author: Curwen Rolinson

So I see King Salman of Saudi Arabia’s kicked off Saudi’s chairmanship of the OIC by demanding that the world (and the Muslim world in particular), get tough on the supporters and enablers of terrorism. The country-level supporters, financiers, directors and enablers of terrorism.

So holdup … the National Party is attempting to make a big deal out of the person whose photo’s on the cover of 2019 Budget having moved to Australia at some point in the past few years, yeah? 

Back in 2012, when the Ministry of Social Development made a whole swathe of highly sensitive information about its clients and operations (including case-notes, personal details of at-risk children, medical records, legal paperwork etc. etc etc.) available to literally anyone who walked off the street into a WINZ office and used a self-service kiosk, I don’t think I recalled Paula Bennett appearing behind the National Leader of the day to demand that the minister in question responsible resign forthwith? 

Everybody knows the old adage that when it comes to lies, there are three kinds: “lies, damned lies, and statistics”. Political press releases, particularly from the National Party, often combine at least two out of the three in some sort of high art form. Yet as is a truth known to only fewer, the best and most persuasive lies are those that actually contain at their core or at least in their sheathing … a hard element of fact. 

I’m pretty sure that if *anybody’s* guilty of the whole aiding and abetting “terrorism as a tool of statecraft”, and generally being a “state sponsor of terror”, it’d be the Americans.