Helen Clark backs Jacinda Ardern over handling of sex assault allegations

Former Prime Minister and Labour leader Helen Clark is backing Jacinda Ardern in her handling of the controversy over sexual assault allegations, saying the party has let her down.

…someone with the mana of Aunty Helen would normally be enough, but the right wing pundits and politicians won’t let this go and they will keep trying to drum up scandals and smear, but most importantly neither will the woke activists or activist media journalists let it go.

For the Woke activists and activist media like Spin Off, the debate will now move to those who have enabled rape culture by not agreeing to the new mantra that allegation is the new evidential threshold.

We can see that with the new attacks on Kelvin Davis.

In the post MeToo landscape, accusation is guilt and due process is cis-male privilege. For the woke, the accusation is enough and anyone who might suggest that we require a higher standard of evidence than accusation are rape culture enablers.

The damage won’t be caused by National attacking Jacinda, it will be the woke who will cause the deepest cuts.

The irony that might sink Jacinda is utterly lost on them.

Again. I don’t believe Jacinda knew the seriousness of these allegations and I think she has been let down by staff with a misplaced sense of loyalty. I don’t think Labour had the capacity to deal with allegations this serious.

Those volunteers with allegations of abuse require to be treated seriously and they weren’t, ultimately the Police are the appropriate place for allegations of sexual assault this serious.

Everything beyond that is just politics and culture war.

…when you see this level of malicious venom it’s difficult to view any of National’s current criticism as anything more than opportunistic point scoring against Jacinda.

This whole thing is starting to look less like a fight for justice and more like a moralistic feeding frenzy based on allegations we don’t actually know happened or not.

I do believe that the Labour Party hierarchy however has utterly failed Jacinda just as they failed her when she wasn’t told about the Summer Camp scandal.

Simon Mitchell was on the Investigating Panel that looked into this complaint that failed to provide accountability, that’s the same Simon Mitchell who bought the Helen Clark forgery and burnt it after buying it.

Pity the Labour hierarchy failed Jacinda in a way they didn’t fail Helen Clark.

A veteran human rights activist, “Manay” Judy – as she is fondly called – was a prominent activist during the martial law era under the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and was imprisoned herself for her dissent against the dictatorship. Today, she is witnessing the same level of tyranny and terror that she resisted in the 70’s and 80’s, under the rule of incumbent President Duterte.

During the first six months of the Duterte Presidency, the Philippine government engaged in peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), which the armed revolutionary group the New People’s Army (NPA) falls under, to put an end to a decades-old conflict with the Philippine Government. 

To demonstrate he had the intention to negotiate a peace agreement with the NPA in good faith, President Duterte agreed to appoint progressive activists to his Cabinet. Dr. Taguiwalo was one of three progressives appointed to Cabinet, she agreed to take the position hoping to advance progressive change in the Philippines. 

In Cabinet she pushed reforms to improve the distribution of aid to the poor, including removing the corrupt practice requiring welfare recipients to get a signature from a local political representative to receive assistance, while also opposing reactionary policies of the Duterte Administration, such as the re-imposition of the death penalty and support for extrajudicial killings.

In 2017, Dr. Taguiwalo was forced out of her Cabinet position by the elite-dominated Congress and Senate, outraged by her challenges to patronage politics.

Since breaking ties with the administration, Manay Judy has been a staunch critic of the Duterte regime. She has been at the forefront of the protest against rampant extrajudicial killings, particularly the killings happening in the Philippine island of Negros – where 87 civilians, mostly peasants and human rights advocates, have been killed since the start of the Duterte Presidency.

As the convener of the Defend Negros Network, a collective of activists that are calling for an end to the spate of killings in the island, Manay Judy has been organizing demonstrations calling for an end to the killings and hold the perpetrators responsible. 

Prior to becoming a Cabinet secretary, she was a professor at the University of the Philippines’ Department of Women and Development Studies. In recognition of her advocacy for women’s equality, she was awarded by the University of the Philippines Alumni Association the 2009 Distinguished Alumni Award in Gender Equality/Women’s Empowerment.

Her advocacy for women’s rights was also reflected in her activism: in the wake of President Duterte’s misogynistic rhetoric and political persecution of female critics in government, Manay Judy – along with a group of other women – co-founded the #BabaeAko (#IAmAWoman) movement, which was named among TIME magazine’s “25 Most Influential People on the Internet” in 2018.

During Dr. Taguiwalo’s public speaking engagements in Aotearoa, she will give an insider account of the present administration, her views on the current human rights situation in the Philippines, and what the international community can do to show solidarity for the victims of oppression under the brutal Duterte regime.

Dr. Taguiwalo’s scheduled public meetings are as follows:

Sept. 17, Tuesday – Wellington

• 5.30 p.m. – St. John’s Conference Hall, 129 Dixon Street, Te Aro

Sept. 18, Wednesday – Christchurch

• 7.30 p.m. – Helen Kelly Room, Trade Union Centre, 68 Langdons Road, Papanui

Sept. 25, Wednesday – Auckland

• 6 p.m. – Room 204, Northey Lecture Theatre, Building 801, Univ. of Auckland Law School, 9 Eden Crescent

Louie Encabo is a human rights activist.

A decade ago, Adam Sacks denounced climate activists for failing to get to the root cause of climate change. But for Sacks the root cause was the wrong turn humans took when they embarked on rapid industrialization, hierarchies of power and destruction of nature. The solution was to apply the correct ideas to reverse this process, and create local, democratic and collective economies.

Around the same time, some Marxists argued it was not the wrong ideas, but capitalist class exploitation that was the cause of the destruction of nature, and that the only way to stop the collapse of the ecosystem was full-on activism to overthrow capitalism and build a world socialist society.

A decade has passed and the ability to stop and reverse climate change is less likely even with a socialist revolution. And still the majority of humanity fails to act, or does so only in order to reform capitalism. Today, such is the damage to the ecosphere, more climate activists are openly calling for the end of capitalism.

This sounds radical but it is not even that. Capitalism for most means the market, precisely what bourgeois ideology argues when it talks about equality and freedom to buy and sell. Most still claim that the Anthropocene is an aberration from true capitalism caused by rich and powerful people putting themselves before nature and humanity.

But as we argue here, radicalism does not go the root of capitalism. It does not recognise that rich and powerful people are motivated by profit because as the owners of capital they can accumulate wealth only by means of exploiting labor and the rest of nature to the point of destruction. There can be no reconciliation of capitalism with nature.

Hence, capital can only survive by destroying the means of its own survival, nature. This is why the current crisis is existential. It is terminal because it combines both economic stagnation (the decline of profitable production) and the destruction of the ecosphere. Humanity must destroy capitalism and give birth to the embryo of socialism to survive as the fully developed Commune.

We have to understand that the fundamental contradiction between nature and capital is the root cause of the failure of capitalist production and that this knowledge is the key to our survival. Capitalism must be overthrown by the producers, who go on to build a society in which production is for need, and is sustainable because the union of nature with society is restored.

Critical to this transition is the capacity of the producers to organize democratically and smash capitalism and all its institutions. To do this the working people (producers) have to escalate their direct action against capitalism and all its institutions to survive, learning the hard lessons, that nothing can be defended or won without a global socialist revolution.

To overcome the crisis of production which is also the extinction crisis, we have to resolve the third crisis – that of revolutionary leadership. Revolutionaries fight to build an international democratic movement modelled on the Commune where all delegates are elected and recallable, are paid no more than the average workers’ wage, and militias are built to defend the movement from inevitable state repression and fascist gangs.

In that movement all political currents debate solutions. Reformists try to keep the movement limited to what is ‘realistic’ or ‘feasible’ within capitalism. That is no solution. Anti-Capitalist radicals fight to overcome those limitations and face state and fascist violence with organised and armed defence. But there is no agreed model of a future society in harmony with nature. Models based on indigeneity, localism, technical fixes, etc., fail to understand that the embryo of socialism conceived by capital is already straining to be born.

Marxists stand on the lessons of history: that capitalism in destroying nature has exhausted its historical mission; that no concessions can be made to the ruling class; no compromises around the sharing of power; no trust in bourgeois and petty-bourgeois leaders; no faith in the police or army taking our side; no war but class war and no victory but socialist revolution!

As a Marxist I argue that without overcoming the most dangerous crisis, that of revolutionary leadership, there can be no successful revolution against the Capitalocene, no chance to reverse ecocide and the threat of extinction, and as a result, no new society in harmony with nature that makes it possible for humanity to develop to its full freedom in the form of the Commune.

Dave Brownz is TDBs guest Marxist blogger because every Left wing blog needs a Marxist.

NEW ZEALAND’S GOVERNMENT faces a difficult choice between doing the right thing and the expedient thing over Israel’s latest outrage. This country has a proud record of lending its voice to the United Nations’ condemnation of the Israeli state’s repeated violations of international norms in its treatment of the Palestinian people. In the current international climate, however, upholding that proud diplomatic record risks making New Zealand politicians targets for Israeli destabilisation.

The latest, and potentially one of the most dangerous, Israeli threats to the Palestinians has been issued by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. His proposal is, in essence, to annex the entire Jordan Valley to the Israeli state. Were he to be in a position, following the pending Israeli elections, to implement this promise, all hope of a “two state solution” peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would evaporate completely.

For those readers of The Daily Blog who feel disposed to dismiss any prospect of Israeli destabilisation, the example of the United Kingdom repays close attention.

Ever since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party, the Israelis have sanctioned, funded and organised one of their most shameless interventions, ever, in the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation.

Utilising every individual, group and institution responsive to Jerusalem’s guidance, the Israeli national security apparatus first redefined and then weaponised the concept of antisemitism, unleashing it upon Corbyn and his supporters with unprecedented political fury. Challenges to the foreign and domestic policies of the Israeli state – such as Corbyn has made for the past 30 years – are now routinely presented as incontrovertible proof of his antisemitic prejudice.

Such a self-serving redefinition of antisemitism would, almost certainly, have been laughed off the political stage had it not been for the extraordinary support it received from the mainstream British news media.

It is no accident that the two media organisations responsible for prosecuting Corbyn’s “antisemitism” most forcefully are the BBC and The Guardian. Had these two leaders of liberal opinion refused to buy into Jerusalem’s campaign, the attack would have had to be carried out by all the usual right-wing media suspects. That apparently “left-wing” journalists and columnists were willing to brand Corbyn an antisemite was crucial to the campaign’s impact.

So, how does the definition work? The proposition advanced is a very simple one.

The State of Israel represents the last, best hope of protecting the Jewish people from persecution and genocide. To suggest that the Jews can rely upon anybody but the State of Israel in this respect is to wilfully misread the lessons of history. To undermine in any way the strength and coherence of the Israeli state is, therefore, a hostile act. Those who do so represent a clear and present danger to the Jewish people’s sanctuary. Only those who seek to do the Jews harm could countenance such a policy. They are, ipso facto, antisemites.

That this simplistic formula actually works on well-educated and otherwise progressive individuals is explicable in no small measure by the identity of those who have, over the course of the last 70 years, made no secret of their wish to destroy the State of Israel. Journalists over 60 recall the Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and ask themselves what would have happened had the Israeli Defence Force not prevailed. Younger intellectuals remember the terrorist campaigns of the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah, and ponder the ethics of “ proactive self-defence”.

“If you’re looking for a good reason to stand with the Jewish people,” say Israel’s defenders, “just take a look at who’s standing against them.”

The Israeli case is strengthened by the geopolitical considerations that have never ceased to drive the policies of both the United Kingdom and the United States – especially when it comes to oil. The repeated trashing of the Middle East by the UK and the USA, from the end of World War II to the present day, has, among many other effects, increased immeasurably the military and economic strength of Israel. All three states have a powerful vested interest in keeping the balance of power firmly tilted in Israel’s favour.

Such are the considerations that New Zealand’s diplomats must weigh before responding to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s incendiary promise. Our convalescing Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, will, therefore, be asking himself two vital questions.

Dare we remain silent in the face of a policy that can only lead to the wholesale ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Israeli-occupied territory?

And.

Will Jacinda thank me for adding the fearsome capabilities of the Israeli national security apparatus to a plate already piled high with troubles?

We so often take events of the past for granted and forget that much of what we experience today reflects what happened yesterday.

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

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‘We’re in the middle of negotiations for a port wide collective agreement that covers cargo handlers, marine, maintenance and security staff and this news highlights the wages inequality gap between the rich and those struggling to make ends meet’ said the unions spokesperson, John Kerr.

‘Any success that Port Otago has enjoyed in the past year is ultimately down to rank and file port workers working around the clock in all weathers loading and unloading the freight on shipping so as to grow the Otago economy and meet customer needs,’ he said

‘Port Otago are currently offering our members a mean spirited 2% increase over 12 months which is in stark contrast to yesterday’s disclosure of the port company’s generosity to its Chief Executive of a $100,000 payrise and has simply inflamed the situation,’ he said.

‘Members started an indefinite overtime ban last Saturday to try and focus management and the Board’s minds on achieving a solution. The key issues between us remain fatigue management and remuneration and despite three mediated negotiation meetings in the past two weeks we’ve made very little progress,’ he said.

‘Given the lack of progress and of a decent percentage offer yesterdays news has hardened the resolve of our members to obtain a fair share of the profitability of the Port Company for those whose toil and labour generates the hundred thousand pieces of silver that the CEO is now pocketing. We don’t see this dispute ending anytime soon unless the dollars are shared amongst the all and not just the management class,’ he said

But, like any element of entertainment, some slots are better than others. Below we have picked out five of the best games available to play at New Zealand online casinos right now. 

Legacy of Ra – MegaWays 

2019’s hottest trend in casino games is undoubtedly the MegaWays range. The technology, developed by Big Time Gaming but licensed out to other developers, consists of shifting reel sets, with most of the games having over 100,000 different winning combinations. You can click to try the games at the casino.com/nz site, but our favourite of the series is Legacy of Ra. It is a top casino game in its own right, but the act of adding the MegaWays feature to the platform has made it something special.  

Narcos Video Slot

Netflix’s smash-hit series Narcos has got some major critical acclaim for its portrayal of the gritty takedown of Colombian drug cartels. While drug gangs might not seem like a good idea for a slot’s theme, this officially licensed game works on several levels. The game’s creators, NetEnt did a lot of work to bring this game to life, almost treating it as if it was a movie release, such was the swirl of excitement around it. Is it worth the hype? Sure. It’s a fun game that will be enjoyed by fans of the Netflix series and casino players alike. 

Gladiator: Road to Rome 

Like Narcos above, Gladiator: Road to Rome is an officially licensed game. It is, in fact, a sequel to the hugely popular Gladiator slot. Both games use real imagery and video from the Ridley Scott epic film Gladiator. Road to Rome is very similar in style and substance to the original Gladiator slot, but there are few nice improvements – notably in the Free Games Bonus – that help make a sound argument that Road to Rome is an improvement. You should note, however, that both games share a progressive jackpot. 

Coins of Egypt 

Creating casino games based on the myths of Ancient Egypt is by no means a new phenomenon. In fact, there are dozens and dozens of games based on that mythology out there. Coins of Egypt doesn’t really veer away too much from many of the other games, but there is so a lot to love about this game. Cool graphics and some innovative ways to win large amounts of cash sit on the top of that list. 

Superman II

Playtech is known for creating some of the best movie-themed slots around, and it has arguably reached its peak in this area with the DC Superheroes slots. Games based on the likes of Batman Begins, Justice League and Aquaman are all brilliant, but top pick must be the endlessly inventive Superman II slot. It’s stuffed full of brilliant bonus games and special features, and it infuses lots of the Richard Lester 1981 movie into fabric of the game. Superman II is also linked to the DC Superheroes Jackpot Network. 

The reports on raised stroke levels are very dubious for these reasons:

1. There were very small numbers of vegans in the study and when analysed independently from the vegetarians there was in fact  no significant increase in stroke.

2. For the main analysis the vegans were lumped together with vegetarians , who had diets about as high in fat and low in fibre as the meat eaters.

3. The vegans in the EPC OXFORD studies are notoriously unhealthy vegans, eating about as much fat as meat eaters again and measly amounts of fibre. This means they were probably eating lots of unhealthy processed vegan foods, whereas the recommended diet for vegans is a whole food plant based diet, which is exceptionally healthy and if studied would certainly show lower stroke rates. These vegans had lower levels of Vitamin B12, vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids which is not advisable.

4. There were very small numbers of vegans and vegan disease in the study.

5. This is not consistent with other findings e.g. the ARIC study which found lower hemorrhagic stroke risks on a vegan diet.

In summary, there is no increased risk of stroke for vegans. There is a higher risk of heart disease for meat eaters. Auckland GP Dr Mark Craig said “We know that the main risk factors for preventing stroke are lower LDL cholesterol, lower blood pressure, lower diabetes rates and so on and these are all very significantly lower in vegans in most previous studies, and particularly in those following a whole foods vegan diet, which is what we recommend for health. In places where a plant based diet is eaten around the world, it has been shown repeatedly that populations live very significantly longer and enjoy greater health.”

After everything we’ve seen since Jacinda became Prime Minister – the courage, resilience & leadership she exhibited in the wake of the Christchurch massacre & her empathy on a dozen other issues, I find the attempt to claim that she would have knowingly covered up a sexual assault is a character assassination of the most vile

The malicious glee many right wing pundits are enjoying while smearing Jacinda is as ugly as it is hypocritical.

Ugly because I don’t believe for one second Jacinda was made aware of the severity of the allegations and hypercritical because I don’t remember all these right wing commentators being as vocal on accountability & who-knew-what-when regarding Mike Sabin!

If you want to compare apples with apples, let’s compare how National treated Mike Sabin and how Labour have treated this staffer.

The Labour Staffer at the centre of these sexual assault allegations has just resigned one day after the Labour President resigned once the true nature of the allegations were made clear to Jacinda.

That is bloody accountability!

Compare that with how National treated Northland MP Mike Sabin. There weren’t just allegations against Mike, there was an active police inquiry  – how did National handle that? The kept him on as the Chair of the bloody law and order select committee!!!!

National MP Mike Sabin to remain law and order chairman during investigation into alleged assault

A National Party MP at the centre of reports he is being investigated by police over an alleged assault will remain as chairman of the law and order select committee in Parliament.

Northland MP Mike Sabin, 46, has gone to ground since reports emerged late last year that he was under investigation by police after a complaint had been laid against him.

Neither Mr Sabin, Prime Minister John Key nor the police have confirmed the reports.

This morning, Mr Key said he was comfortable with Mr Sabin holding the role of chairman of the law and order select committee.

…Jacinda was not aware of the severity of allegations against a staffer, once she was aware the President and Staffer resigned.

National knew about an investigation into one of  their MPs and kept him on as chair of the law and order select committee until they couldn’t hide it any longer and he stepped down

The selective outage by the right wing media pundits is as disingenuous as it is vile!

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has written to Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters today urging that New Zealand condemn the Israeli Prime Minister’s planned annexation of vast tracts of the occupied West Bank of Palestine.

This is theft on a grand scale. It is a reckless incitement to violence. It is reprehensible.

Such an annexation of illegal Israeli settlements would be a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter and international law. It would constitute a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

It is a travesty of what New Zealand stands for internationally.

Netanyahu made the announcement in his role as Prime Minister of Israel. He has broadcast to the world his intention to commit a war crime. New Zealand must respond.

We have told the foreign minister that the usual patsy diplomatic language of “disproportionate response” or “unhelpful to creating peace in the region” would be wholly inadequate.

Action NOW from New Zealand must include concrete steps such as:

• Condemning the proposed annexation of vast areas of Palestinian land
• Cancellation of the proposed importation of $9 million of Israeli military equipment
• Suspension of the signing of the so-called “innovation agreement” with the Israeli government
• Expelling the Israeli ambassador

For the past three years New Zealand has taken no significant action to protest Israeli theft of Palestinian land, attacks on unarmed Palestinian civilians or the murder of Palestinian children. Our silence has encouraged the Israeli government to continue its plunder of Palestine.

Silence now is not an option.

We must send an unambiguous signal to the Israeli government that New Zealand finds the proposed annexation abhorrent.

John Minto

National Chair

Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa

Episode 3 – Auckland mayoralty Debate Tuesday September 17th 8pm-9pm

Featuring:

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff

Auckland Mayoralty Candidate John Tamihere

Register here.

Let’s get ready to rumble.

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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WILL ANYBODY IN the Labour Party learn anything from this latest debacle? It seems doubtful, especially coming so soon after the 2018 Summer School Scandal. Nigel Haworth, who didn’t so much fall on his sword this morning (11/9/19) as get thrust very roughly into it, has gone, but the malady lingers on.

What Labour is suffering from is a disease that is easy to diagnose but hard to explain. The Ancient Greeks called it hubris – roughly defined as: “excessive pride and/or over-confidence”. That’s fine, as far as it goes, but a better sense of the word’s meaning is gleaned by listing its synonyms:arrogance, conceitedness, haughtiness, pride, vanity, self-importance, pomposity, superciliousness, hauteur. Those afflicted by the fatal flaw of hubrisharbour unfaltering feelings of superiority over all those lesser breeds with whom they are forced to have dealings. It is usually fatal.

The time-line of this latest scandal, helpfully pulled together by the journalists at The Spinoff, reveals just how seriously infected Labour has become by the hubris disease. Throughout the crooked course of this tawdry saga every one of the synonyms listed above has been in evidence; and each character failing appears to have occasioned a corresponding failure in performance. That’s the awful thing about hubris: its way of leading the sufferer into terrible misjudgements and mistakes. Wonderful for driving forward the action in Ancient Greek theatre. Not so helpful in politics.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Labour had a lot to feel excessively prideful and over-confident about. But they don’t. The party’s record since 2008 has been one of ever-worsening failure – calibrated by the steady decline in Labour’s Party Vote up until 2017. And who was the person who rescued the party’s fortunes that fateful year? It most certainly wasn’t Nigel Haworth; or the Labour Caucus; or the clowns in the Leader’s Office. No, it was Jacinda Ardern wot won it. Except, of course, not even that is true. The person wot won it for Labour in 2017 was Winston Peters.

And yet the hauteur of Labour MPs and their party-dwelling apparatchiks remains undiminished. They still evince utter disdain for all those “lesser breeds without the law”.

Rudyard Kipling’s line is especially apt in this context, because it is the Labour Party’s movers-and-shakers understanding of what constitutes “the law” that lies at the very heart of their hubris.

Jacinda, herself, must have come into contact with it during her brief stint as one of Tony Blair’s bright young things in the early-2000s. The key question for any Blairite was whether or not so-and-so “gets it”. Gets what? Simple: the whole “New Labour”, “Neoliberal”, “Post-Thatcher” – call it what you will – “project”. You were either smart enough (and ambitious enough) to get that the days of old-fashioned social-democracy (don’t even mention the word ‘socialism’!) were over, and that capitalism had won the battle of ideas hands-down, or you weren’t. If you didn’t “get” this – if you still don’t “get it” – then you are no bloody use to anybody who takes politics seriously.

Putting all this back into a New Zealand context, the “getting-it” test goes all the way back to Rogernomics. It’s not so much a matter of having to sign-up to everything Roger Douglas and his fellow free-marketeers did. It was more a case of, to make your way forward in the post-1984 Labour Party, you had to make it absolutely clear to all the people who mattered that you had no intention of un-doing it.

That this commitment to the neoliberal status quo must instantly set the movers-and-shakers at odds with a pretty big chunk of their party’s membership; an even larger chunk of its trade union affiliates; and what is still, almost certainly, a majority of Labour’s most loyal voters, only serves to strengthen the perception they have of themselves as a special elite. Among the lesser breeds, they’ll talk up a social-democratic storm – promising them everything from 100,000 affordable houses to the end of child poverty. But, among themselves – among the ones who get it – the objectives, and the rules of the game, are very different.

And yet, these are the rules the young complainants in this latest scandal have had to negotiate their way through: a task made all the more difficult and distressing by the fact that nobody told them what they were. They did not understand that the invitation to come forward with their personal experiences of sexual misconduct was never meant to be taken seriously. They did not grasp that the prime objective of the Labour Party is not to build a better, fairer world, but to win the next election. Or, that the people to be protected within the party are not its younger and most idealistic members, but its most skilled electoral technicians; the paid staffers who know their way around the ever-more-complex circuitry of political power.

These complainants, however, have proved to be fast learners of the elite’s unwritten rules. (Telling their stories to Paula Bennett and The Spinoff proved a masterstroke!) What was supposed to have been “managed” out of sight and off-camera, has been hurled bodily into the media’s unforgiving glare. Suddenly, the vast abyss that separates the idealistic from the hubristic Labour Party (the Labour Party that “gets it”) has been revealed in all its Nietzschean darkness and danger.

So, talk fast Jacinda. You’re talking for your political life.

Yet to be honest, I’m entirely unsurprised that Simon Bridges would speak positively about the Chinese Communist Party, even at a time like this with regard to Hong Kong. The fact is, that regardless of however many National supporters might have earnestly believed in that sign at the last election, that Jacinda Ardern is somehow a “PRETTY COMMUNIST”, and then kept up much the same red-baiting rhetoric in letters to the editor and upon talkback radio for much of the just under two years since …

… the National Party has long had a much more complex relationship with “Communist” China. Even at the height of the Cold War,in 1976 – while Chairman Mao was still alive and still nominally in control, some years before the ‘transition’ to a ‘market economy’ had begun – the Nats were quite happy to have their then-leader pay an official visit to Beijing.

The PRC  then arguably returned the favour, by sending an apparent envoy in the form of Dr Jian Yang to meet with the last *several* National leaders, over a period of the last eight years, through the highly transparent forum of the National Party’s Parliamentary Caucus, of which he is an elected (list) member.

Something which the Nats were evidently quite keen to keep going, as it appeared that while in government they’d placed pressure on our security intelligence services *not* to unduly scrutinize Dr Yang, and particularly not over his hushed-up background with the PRC’s military intelligence apparatus.

This ongoing bilateral politician exchange programme appears to have taken on elements of shuttlecock diplomacy – with former National Party Prime Minister Jenny Shipley amidst a lengthening list of luminaries who’ve since re-emerged into public life tethered to the local arms of PRC economic organs.

As applies Shipley in particular, there is a perhaps interesting comparison with what has happened with Simon. Bridges, at the very least, whomever may have written the words for him, *did* utter them himself. Unlike Shipley’s surprise at finding she’d somehow written an OpEd for the CCP’s People’s Daily without actually realizing it nor intending to do so.

More recently, at seemingly every step, the National Party have been like a small yappy thing with a bone in criticizing the Labour/NZF/Greens government for apparently undermining/imperiling/vandalizing New Zealand’s relationship with the PRC.

I suppose, in particular, that it is understandable that the Nats are now basically unconcerned about the signposted risks to national security of letting Huawei handle our 5G network upgrade. After all, with the PRC already having been in possession of a “man on the inside” [and not just of National – of the Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade Parliamentary Select Committee, inter alia] for some years now, the National Party just wants the rest of the country to be subject to the same privilege.

I would have said that was “generous” and “egalitarian” of them – but as we all know, National under Simon Bridges considers “two Chinese” to be “better than two Indians”, per their own words on the subject. No word on what the rough conversion rate is for other ethnicities, but I hear that when National’s loyalty to this country was up for grabs, it fetched only a mere thirty pieces of silver.

In any case, even leaving aside all of teh above, it is absolutely unsurprising that Simon Bridges would speak positively of the modern-day Chinese Communist Party.

And for one simple reason.

Once you strip away all the mid-20th century political rhetoric and symbolism (including, oddly enough, a lot of banging on about representing farmers .. by which I mean peasants, once upon a time), the CCP are basically more-market repressive authoritarians, who never lose an election, never have to apologize, build roads everywhere, and whose leader is mandatorily popular with the people.

You know – *exactly* what National and Simon Bridges *wish* they could be.

I’ve known Jacinda for a very long time. She’s babysat my daughter and I’ve known Clarke since Channel Z days.

I remember in 2011 when she and I were having a coffee at Occum Cafe in Grey Lynn during the Darren Hughes scandal. I was arguing that Phil had handled it poorly and hadn’t sacked Hughes immediately, Jacinda was arguing for due process. In that case the due process led to Hughes resigning himself.

That’s Jacinda in a nutshell. She stands for what is fair and what is just and believes in due process over the knee-jerk of the lynch mob.

I point blank refuse to believe she would not have acted immediately if she knew the latest scandal was a serious sexual assault.

Yes, I certainly think the benefit of the doubt has been extended to the Labour Staffer and yes I believe the Staffer’s connections have reinforced that benefit, but those are naturally occurring defences employed whenever a colleague is accused of something, however to extend that to out right denial and lying by the Prime Minister is unfounded and spiteful.

Heather Duplicitous has claimed some great moment of catching the Prime Minister out because there were rumours in August of a sexual assault.

Heather’s allegations are a false conflation.

Yes there were rumours circulating in August but internally Jacinda was receiving assurances that this wasn’t a sexual assault. To try and damn her for that is spurious and beneath the seriousness of this allegation.

What do I believe has happened?

I believe the exact same misplaced loyalty to protect the PM from the Summer Camp scandal has occurred in this latest scandal and Jacinda was kept in the dark to ‘protect’ her from fallout.

What needs to happen now?

Nigel Haworth must resign and the Staffer sacked. It doesn’t even matter now if he has or hasn’t followed procedure and it doesn’t even matter if the allegations are false or true at this stage because we have a social media feeding frenzy and emotionally manipulative statements from ‘survivors’ leading the news. One male surviver wishes to meet with Jacinda to lecture her on rape culture while Paula Bennett is being leaked information. The woke are at DEFCON 1 with all the resulting subjective rage that creates, the Spin Off has reached a level of sanctimony difficult to achieve without a Church and the Alt-Right who tend to not give two shits about sexual assaults are now suddenly all Matthew Hooton feminists.

Nothing less than heads rolling will cauterise this and move this from the headlines.

There is also something else in all of this. As every organisation attempts to come to grips with sexual assaults in a post MeToo landscape, it seems we are judging organisations very harshly over an issue that the Police and the Court system struggle to find justice.

The speed and ease with which allegations can spin out of control has already been well witnessed in NZ recently. The law firm that was painted out to be a den of sexual abuse was investigated and found to have some bad pockets of unprofessional behaviour. Anihera Zhou Black claimed her husband was part of a pedophile sex ring that went to the highest levels of NZ politics and Jami-Lee Ross had 4 anonymous women annihilate him with allegations some of which had political motivations. Even the Summer School scandal went from mass sexual assaults to 2 assaults.

When the legal system that is built and resourced to handle these allegations are barely capable of doing so, demanding a forensic level of justice from organisations seems terribly misplaced.

Do I think every accusation should be believed? No I don’t, I think they need to be taken seriously and in this case that simply hasn’t happened.

To watch all of the good Jacinda has worked on destroyed because of this would be the most damaging self-mutilation ever.  Prime Minister, you must amputate before this swallows your legacy and this staffer must face the law for the sake of the young woman who is accusing him.

UPDATE: Nigel Haworth has resigned.

After everything we’ve seen since Jacinda became PM – the courage, resilience & leadership she exhibited in the wake of the Christchurch massacre & her empathy on a dozen other issues, would have knowingly covered up a sexual assault is a character assassination of the most vile. Those politicians and right wing media trolls peddling such malicious claims do so on the reputation of good decent person.