The Right refuse to focus on Chinese influence in our politics because Farmers benefit from the milk powder sales, property speculators love the inflated property price demand China provides and bankers have a field day financing the exploitation. Additionally for the right, Chinese NZers vote National by almost 75%.

So China funds Farmers, keeps property speculators and banks happy and give 75% of their vote to National.

I simply don’t trust the National Party when it comes to handling our economic interests with China because the National Party itself is now wedded and compromised personally to wealthy Chinese interests.

• Jenny Shipley, Don Brash, Ruth Richardson and Chris Tremain were Director’s of the China Construction Bank
• Judith Collins interaction with Chinese Officials to help her husbands Chinese Company, Oravida, to gain more Chinese money, 
• Maurice Williamson’s love affair with  Donghua Liu saw him become Liu’s personal handyman when doing up Liu’s batch and heavying the Police to drop domestic violence charges
• Claims of a $150 000 donation after a nudge nudge wink wink meeting alongside the attempt by a Chinese Businessmen to buy two Chinese candidates onto the Party List
• Allegations that a Chinese spy is operating openly inside the National Party Caucus.
• Latest allegations that this Chinese Spy – OUTSIDE NORMAL PROTOCOLS – arranged a private meeting between Simon Bridges and the head of the Chinese Secret Police.

At this stage, National is less a political party and more a front for Chinese business interests.

The Left, now over run by woke Identity Politics activists, won’t dare raise the issue of Chinese influence in our political system because to do so is considered xenophobic and racist.

So we have the Right benefitting politically and financially from China and a Left too gutless to say anything lest it be construed as racist covered by a media whom seem far more interested in the business relationships with China than any desire to hold them to account.

The NZ Herald for example has been manipulated into promoting Chinese propaganda in the form of their ‘Chinese Herald’ venture.

‪Alienating woke micro-aggression policing Identity Politics activists to the left of me, climate denying crypto-fascist alt-right incel Trolls to the right of me, and here I am stuck in the middle with you dear reader.

This is the Financial Times last week, I like the shock with which they write about NZ’s jaw dropping infiltration by China…

China is taking its ideological fight abroad

In next-door New Zealand, some of the biggest donors to the main political parties are China-based businessmen with close ties to the Communist party. Campaign finance legislation rushed through parliament last month has done little to close off the loopholes that allow this kind of influence-buying.

Astonishingly, a man who spent at least 15 years working for China’s military intelligence apparatus remains an elected member of parliament, even after admitting he was ordered by the party to conceal his past on his New Zealand immigration application.

Tiny New Zealand may seem like a strange target for Communist party infiltration, but the country is attractive to Beijing as the soft underbelly of the “five eyes” intelligence sharing arrangement with Australia, Canada, the UK and, most importantly, the US. A senior intelligence official from one of these countries described New Zealand to the FT as “on the edge of viability as a member” of the grouping, because of its “supine” attitude to China and its “compromised political system”. China is New Zealand’s biggest export destination. Presumably out of fear Beijing would respond with economic sanctions, Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, has gone out of her way to avoid even mentioning the topic of Chinese political interference.

…isn’t it time to bypass Jacinda’s fear of angering China and stick it directly to the National Party?

There isn’t one person I speak to privately who thinks China’s ongoing encroachment into NZ is a good thing, maybe the common person in the street needs to show by virtue of overwhelming numbers how unacceptable it is for a spy from a foreign nation to be allowed  inside our political system.

I’ve never started a petition for anything before, here is the first one I’ve created here.

Sign to have Jian Yang removed from the National Party and send a message that even if the politicians are too frightened to stand up to China and the media too timid to cover it, the ordinary citizen on the street can roar over the both of them.

There is no place for a country with the appalling human rights record and mass surveillance fetish of China in our politics.

For that to be true, the Iranians would have to not only have obstinately refused to apologize for their actions, but also awarded their equivalent to the Legion of Merit decoration to the Iranian military unit responsible.

I’m not kidding. That’s exactly what happened.

In the aftermath of that incident, the Americans did not remove the officer responsible from command, even despite the observations of a number of other US Naval personnel about his aggressive shortcomings which lead directly to the tragedy.

Instead, Captain William C. Rogers III was bestowed with just such a medal “for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer” of the vessel which had brought down the Iranian passenger jet, specifically for the time-period in which the outrage had occurred.

The insults and the immaturity did not end there. Washington pointedly refused to apologize or even really admit culpability (indeed, even going so far in its official analysis as attempting to suggest that the outcome had been partially Iran’s own fault for allowing civilian aircraft to fly along “a normal commercial air flight plan profile, in the assigned airway” which happened to be proximate to a US Navy vessel violating Iranian territorial waters); with George H.W. Bush arguably making *not* apologizing a campaign theme for his 1988 Presidential run.

It took another eight years, and a long-running International Court of Justice suit for the Americans to reach a settlement with Iran which pointedly, again, mandated no apology – although did afford a multi-million dollar settlement to attempt to bring the matter to a close.

Now, you contrast this with the Iranian response to the downing of the Ukrainian airliner on Wednesday. Its immediate reaction had been to declare a Day of Mourning for the victims; and while there had been two days of uncertainty and downplaying of potential culpability (during which time, again to their credit, the Iranians had invited Ukrainian and other foreign personnel to help investigate the cause of the crash), today’s statements from the Iranian Government and Armed Forces have been anything but.

The Iranians have shouldered their share of the burden of responsibility for the “unforgivable mistake” [as President Rouhani called it] of the shoot-down; and instead of talk of medals for the personnel involved, the Iranian military have promised that they shall be held “accountable”, in a judicial setting.

That vital “A-word”, “Apologies”, has also issued forth from their Government – clearly and unequivocally.

All within the span of two to three days, rather than being left hanging for a period of just under a decade.

Now, it almost goes without saying that none of this brings anybody back from the dead; and that it would be hugely preferable for none of this to have ever occurred.

Pointing out how much worse it could have been (if, for instance, the Iranians had followed the “American model” in the wake of this tragedy) does not really make circumstances any better.

Yet without intending to unduly politicize – or, worse, seek to ‘capitalize’ upon – a senseless loss of life, it seems to me that in a period wherein month-in and month-out, we have seen seemingly endless attempts to portray the Iranians as being frothing-at-the-mouth fundamentalist inhuman monsters … responses such as these show not only a common humanity and empathy – but that (especially when compared to their leading detractors) maybe the Iranians aren’t the irrational ones, after all.

FFS – this is the EXACT type of bullshit Police over reaction I warned them to not engage in!…

Far-right activist’s house raided over suspected illegal firearm

Armed police have left empty handed after raiding the home of a far-right activist who they suspected of having an illegal firearm.

It was one of the first police actions targeting firearms owners since the amnesty to hand in recently-outlawed guns and equipment ended last month.

In an article posted to the Right Minds NZ website, the site’s co-founder Dieuwe de Boer said he was home with his wife and three young children when half a dozen armed officers swarmed through his front door while others ran around the side of the house.

…the right wing gun nut community are paranoid as it is, this idiotic policing will only ensure ACT get 3%!

If you read the places Gun owners congregate online, it is a feckless imagination land of conspiracy fuelled paranoia combined with an astounding level of self martyrdom with claims that by losing their guns, they are the true victims of the Christchurch atrocity.

Police should look to write warnings and destroy any guns found rather than a punitive arrest and prosecution model so as to not enflame events that could spin out of control.

They’ve just gone and done the exact thing they shouldn’t have.

Jacinda won the gun battle by removing a vast number of dangerous guns from our streets, but she could easily lose the war if those who haven’t handed their weapons in believe they are seeing the manifestation of their most fettered conspiracies of the Deep State removing their ability to resist a socialist state.

As ludicrous as that conspiracy is, this is the toxic sludge citizens fed on social media news feeds have become.

Heavy handed forced compliance using law that breaches civil rights will give those alienated gun owners all the righteous grievance they need to radicalise, that is a recipe for social carnage, not social cohesion.

Where the fuck is Stuart Nash to provide some real leadership here and do Police want a far right Party gaining political traction on this?

Here is how one Republican briefed on this ‘imminent threat’ responded on seeing the ‘evidence’…

…this entire fiasco is a sick joke, a tantrum pulled by Trump with no foresight of the possible ramifications.

Trump is claiming America was in ‘imminent threat’. Bullshit.

Who is the real imminent threat here?

America has 6800 nuclear weapons and has used nuclear weapons on civilians in the past, they have over 800 military bases and they have invaded and destabilised 80 countries since WW2.

So who is the actual imminent threat? Iran or America?

Don’t for one second think this is over.

Iran made a public show to save face with their useless missile strike, even warning America it was going to attack empty bases, but the real payback will be the proxy war about to be unleashed on every single American asset outside of the United States.

Trump just made the world far more dangerous.

Iran missile attacks: National wants to keep New Zealand troops in Iraq

The National Party says New Zealand troops stationed in Iraq should not “cut and run”, advising the Government to keep troops on the ground.

…folks, in case no one has noticed, the Iraqi Army that we are training has turned against the civilian population it is supposed to be protecting…

The tit-for-tat escalation between the United States and Iran’s proxies quickly brought Iraq back into the spotlight, albeit for all the wrong reasons. The grassroots protesters in Tahrir Square and elsewhere are seeking economic and political reforms—and are speaking out at significant risk to their own safety. Yet the months of protests that have left more than 500 unarmed demonstrators dead, thousands wounded, and dozens subjected to kidnappings, torture, and arbitrary arrests have barely registered in American media.

…that’s right, the army WE are training has killed 500 unarmed civilians, wounded thousands of protestors and are implicit on kidnappings and tortures.

That’s who we are training, an army that is killing its own citizens and torturing them.

Whatever bullshit reason we used to justify us being in Iraq have been exhausted, we aren’t training an army to protect its people, we are training an army that is turning on its people.

Listening to National suck up to Trump is bad enough, hearing them justify why we need to keep training an army to kill and torture their own is however too much.

A ridiculously smug sense of importance overshared on social media & driven with all the inflated selfishness of a Boomer.

Millennials who don’t want to bother with all the stress of obligation and just want to be Instagram influencers ‬instead are a dime a dozen, so why is this story so huge and juicy?

Feminists at Stuff claim it’s all sexism aimed at poor wee Meghan, but seeing as Queen Elizabeth is probably the most powerful Matriarchy on the face of the Planet, that seems a tad twee.

Millennial supporters have shouted on Twitter that poor Meghan faced terrible racism from the Tabloids and was bullied and why should she have to put up with that for one second longer, but that misses the fact that she knew what she was marrying into and blindsiding the Royal family with their social media ultimatum comes across as less like a traumatic intervention and more like Millennial self involvement.

The worst bit about Meghan Markle’s desire to put herself first is that it makes the hateful trash her half sister has spewed out about her being a Machiavellian social climber look far more plausible.

This is a classic millennial vs boomer generation war we are seeing. The idea of obligation, stoicism and duty to tradition are alien concepts for Millennials who are in it for the retweets. As a generation, they haven’t benefited from duty or obligation, they’ve inherited precarious work, soaring inequality and a dying planet.

But that generation war is just part of the attraction here, Families are far more diverse now and they are constantly becoming cultural friction points rather than safe havens. Older women I know spit hate at how they see Meghan has undermined the Queen, younger women I know hiss at the mere idea of being quiet for the greater good while every man I know privately out of ear shot of their wives/girlfriends make jokes about how whipped Harry is.

Personally I don’t care about any of it, they could all go join ISIS for all I care and I still couldn’t give a toss,  but watching the self-righteous justifications and grand pronouncements on why Meghan has every right to pack up her bags and walk because her privileged existence  makes demands on her reminds me that Western culture has become so soft and weak that the simple idea of obligation and duty are too much and require a trigger free safe space with emotional support peacocks.

The sacrifices the Queen made in the face of fascism built a life long dedication to public service, that’s an obligation the Instagram Influencer generation only reserve for their biggest paid sponsor and best free products.

God Save the Queen because Millennials won’t.

I bin thinkin’ (as I sometimes do) as a chief of spies (as I once was for police in Auckland), which can produce WMD out of nothing (such as my predecessors in the police did with Tuhoe).

Hence this outcome:

• The Ukraine 737 crash in Iran, exposes a sanction busting route for North Americans travelling to Iran – via one of America’s satellites – Ukraine.
• The probability is that the Americans had ‘specialists on the ground’ in Iraq prior Trumps assassination of an Iran spy master.
• The probability is that these ‘specialists’ got out of Iraq as quickly as they could, after the assassination = logic m8.
•  The possibility that these ‘specialist’ took the first plane home – out of Iran via the back-door sanction busting route – Ukraine, is a probability if viewed from deep in the forest of spy master culcha.

CONCLUSION.

If Iran identified a ‘specialist’ making its getaway on the Ukraine bound flight, the option to send America a very brutal message, by taking out the ‘specialist’, must be considered as a possibility, though more likely a probability.

The probability of Trump saying: “Hey fellas!  That’s a bit over the top isn’t it? Whacking the whole plane load just to target my ‘specialists’?  America is against “collateral damage”.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE?

This is a term invented by America to describe its perpetual perpetration of war crimes around the globe and is apt for describing the shocking killing of so many innocent people on the Ukraine plane.

DISCLOSURES.

Until recently I had a current MFAT license to trade fish into Iran.   I was screwed by Iran businessmen.

A few years earlier I incurred the wrath of Foreign Affairs Minister (and former parliamentary colleague) Murry McCully, for commercial activities in Syria which resulted in the Ministry threatening to impose sanctions on me. 

As an MP I was accused of being an Arms Dealer of surplus NZ Army rifles.  This was bullshit but, ‘shit sticks’ as I have learned.

Before that I was inspector in charge of VIP Security planning and Criminal Intelligence section (aka spies) in the police in Auckland.

Before that I was a country boy. 

Ross Meurant is a former high ranking Police Officer

The first of these … only did so, not once his position had become “untenable” – but arguably many, many moons post-facto to that point, and following possibly the largest crash-and-burn display of a museum-piece broadcast through media since the Hindenburg re-enactment society (flying under the command of one Captain Will Rogers III [Legion of Merit]) dive-bombed a 1/4th scale model Titanic (built from the hull of the Exxon Valdez), somewhere in the Persian Gulf adjacent to a B.P. oil rig.

And even after that torrid display, incorporating such frankly incredible lines as Prince Andrew claiming that the accusations against him could not be true, because he’s allegedly physically incapable of sweating in stressful situations following being shot at during the Falklands War – the messages being broadcast from the Royal Household were basically that the whole thing was made up nothing to see here stop bullying our poor Andrew.

[To be fair and sure, there is also suggestion that Prince Andrew’s brother, Charles, had a rather more … realistic assessment of affairs, hence the semi-forced step-back/step-down; yet this was all carried out sotto voce and out of the public eye, and apparently running counter to the Queen’s “blind-spot” in reference to her other son.]

The second Prince (and Duchess) ‘lost’ is rather different. Not least because Prince Harry’s approach to “relating to the young people” is entirely unlike that alleged of his uncle. Despite the marrying of a North American tv-star, I think it could be fairly suggested that he might have had a claim to the title “The People’s Prince” [or, in his younger days, and to recall a certain other figure of some notoRoyalty , perhaps the “Prince of Parties”]. And unlike certain of his cousins, he really does appear to have inherited his father’s strong desire to utilize such blessings of prominence and prestige as his birth may have equipped him with, to “make a difference”.

There are many things which could, and already have been speculated as to the reasoning both for the Sussexes’ ‘departure’, and about the ‘establishment’ Royal reaction thereto. You can read those elsewhere.

My own take on it is that it’s perhaps understandable – if it’s true – that leaving ‘unannounced’, and leaving your own father and grandmother and formerly close brother to find out about this via shock newsflashes on the television … might possibly be regarded as a bit impolite. Alternatively, if it isn’t true that that’s what happened – then presenting the departure in this way would be one manner in which you might attempt to grab back ‘control’ of the narrative and some form of resolute moral high ground.

Yet two things stood out to me in both the Sussexes’ announcement, and the ensuing firestorm of “THEY CAN’T DO THAT” emanating from various quarters.

The first of which, was their apparent determination to move towards “financial independence”, and by that I take it they have meant not just ‘paying their own way’, but also the double-meaning of ‘independence’ as entailing not being reined by the purse-strings of the Palace. The “independence” thus sought, therefore, is both for the Commonwealth taxpayer, and from the Commonwealth ‘First Family”s constraining governance.

The second, and this appplies to the reaction to all of the above, was a raised eyebrow of surprise at everybody suggesting that ‘Harry & Meghan’ were now making the Royal Family look bad via their tacit absence from same. Which is as distinct, you understand, from a few weeks beforehand, wherein they were apparently making the Royal Family look bad via their being part of same.

Perhaps I am cynical, but the implicit suggestion seems to be that the Monarchy only works provided it is a Mono-archy. [there is only one “Archie“, thus far, but that is another pun for another time, I’m sure] . That any attempt to move off and ‘do one’s own thing’, and perhaps look a bit better than the beleaguered Imperial Center, even unintentionally, is therefore an express and tangible threat thereto.

Nobody’s seriously suggesting that Prince Harry is retreating off to a Colonial fortress in order to plot a Schism within the Merry House of Windsor, so as to stage a daring back-door palace-coup and elevate himself to plenipotentiary power as some kind of Bonnie Prince Son of Charlie .. although I am rather taken, quietly, with the notion of Prince Archie running for President of the United States and bringing the whole thing back under Union Jack sodality, at least partially because the Windsor dynasty, for all its faults, is responsible for rather fewer in the number of direct wars of expansionist aggression than the Clinton dynasty, the Bush dynasty, or more recently, the Trump Dynasty [no matter the latter’s previous cultivation of support from the isolationist segments of what would become the Trumpenproletariat].

But, then, the Sussexes don’t need to even contemplate anything so brash in order to upend a fairly large proportion of the extended Monarchial order.

While it was only relatively recently that Prince Andrew et co lost access to their round-the-clock taxpayer-funded protection etc. and other such outlays from the Public Purse, the rest of the Royal Family still being heavily state subsidized has from time to time created some degree of disquiet in certain quarters.

It’s not something I have a huge problem with, for the record; but I can see how two young(ish) royals declaring that at least as applies themselves, “enough is enough” and endeavouring to move towards “financial independence” might cause a bit of consternation elsewhere within the Royal institution.

Overall, I suspect that the reasoning for the annoyance about the Sussexes’ decision has less to do with the idea that they’re doing something potentially rash for themselves and which might end in screaming disaster – for them …

.. and much much more to do with the looming specter that maybe, just maybe, Prince Harry and Wife, are in the process of setting up a new kind of Prncedom for the British Realm. One which is much more self-empowered and self-sustaining, and deliberately sets out to Do Things. You could definitely argue that Princess Anne had beat them to it, of course – but for various reasons, she didn’t get anything like the same attention in recent years for doing so. Probably because she was less public about it, and possibly because she wasn’t so directly proximate to the lineage of succession and public mind’s eye.

Will it work? Who knows.

But I, for one, am rather eager to see what happens next – perhaps we really shall be getting our “People’s Prince”.

David Parker will be gently trying to inch his water reforms under the political radar to enact in a second term because he will know how easily National and NZ First can manipulate any suggestion of Māori water rights into a political dog whistle.

The growing environmental degradation caused by the climate crisis will generate a resurgent environmental guardianship amongst Māoridom as western capitalism utterly fails the biosphere.

2: Honour the Treaty don’t settle the Treaty movement

The lasting legacy of the Ihumātao protest will be a new generation of activists who will demand the Treaty be honoured not settled. Their desire to unpick the past agreements because the pittance paid for land theft actually compounds the injustice rather than alleviates it will become the new starting point for their decolonisation activism.

3: Poverty & Inequality

With National promising beneficiary crack downs, punitive gang policy and revoking Prisoner rights to vote, Māori are being targeted with civil rights roll backs while their poverty and inequality sky rocket. Add an armed Police force and it will become impossible to ignore the groaning disparity between Pakeha and Māori in 2020.

Expect all hell to break lose if the neoliberal welfare agencies who are still punishing rather than healing uplift another Māori baby on camera or an unarmed Māori gets shot and killed by Police.

4: Health & Mental Health

The Wai 2575 health inquiry will occur while the State examines historic abuse in their care. Once again the pain and suffering and counter productive damage State agencies will have wrecked upon the lives of many Māori will be an open wound that will make many flinch in disbelief at the systemic cruelty Māori have endured.

Radical solutions like Māori social service providers will become a rallying cry in the face of such violence.

5: Resurgent Māori Party

If John Tamihere turns the support he had in the Auckland Mayoralty into an electorate fight for Tāmaki Makaurau for the Māori Party, not only could he win, he could bring other MPs in off the MMP coat tailing provisions. While Tamihere didn’t have enough to beat Phil, the electoral nerve endings he has built throughout Tāmaki Makaurau could be used to catapult the Māori Party into political relevance again.

In 2020, Māori will ask if their faith in Jacinda has justified putting all their eggs in Labour’s basket, or whether extra Māori voices outside Labour are required to see real political sovereignty.

First published on Waatea News.

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How would you feel? What would you do?

Such was Iran’s dilemma.

The solution the Iranian Islamic Republic settled upon bears testimony to the wisdom born of the Iranian/Persian people’s three thousand year history. It drew its metaphorical sword, waited until the USA lifted its metaphorical shield, and then tossed its deadliest weapon contemptuously at the attacker’s feet. There are many kinds of sword and many ways to use them. If General Qasem Soleimani taught his people anything, it was always to fight the Americans and their allies on your terms – not theirs.

It is a lesson the rest of the world will also have to learn – and quickly. With the USA no longer interested in even trying to disguise its imperial ambitions, it has become necessary to tread extremely carefully on the international stage. Bold assertions of national sovereignty, especially in the form of passionate protests against US policy, are likely to be interpreted in Washington as acts prejudicial to the national security of the United States – and responded to accordingly. Small countries, like New Zealand, must be particularly circumspect, lest they be turned into an example of what happens to little states foolish enough to think they can ruffle the American Eagle’s feathers with impunity.

We all need to grasp the evolving reality of America’s economic, cultural and military vulnerability and how it is being manifested at home and abroad. The Trump presidency was no accident. How else was the potential eclipse of White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant privilege to be headed-off except by enlisting as many of the White working-class as possible in the struggle to preserve what is now openly presented as their common racial supremacy?

The vulgarisation of American politics matches perfectly the steady incorporation of the “poorly educated” (and the even more poorly paid) into the ranks of the Republican Party. Trump’s political genius has been to embrace and embody those values and prejudices which the best educated and best paid Americans most vehemently reject and despise. In the simplest terms: to become the most thoroughly deplorable specimen in Hillary Clinton’s infamous “basket of deplorables”.

This deliberate presidential embrace of wilful ignorance, crude racism and religious bigotry renders the task of maintaining the United States’ global ascendancy much easier. The need to dress up American self-interest in the rhetorical finery of a Kennedy or an Obama is no longer so pressing. While the USA is still able to wield unchallengeable military power its economic dominance will remain unassailable. The more obvious this linkage becomes, the more useful it is to present to the world the uncomplicated and unrepentant face of American hegemony. Trump’s insouciant truculence fits the bill nicely.

The White House ceremony (it would be wrong to call it a press conference) in which the President gracelessly accepted the Iranian Government’s de-escalation of the international crisis which he, himself, had unleashed by authorising Soleimani’s assassination, was a vivid illustration of the new reality in world affairs.

Thomas Jefferson’s acknowledgement in the American Declaration of Independence that “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that [a people] should declare the causes which impel them” towards actions of historical significance, was nowhere in evidence. “Mankind’s” opinion of America and its diplomacy turns out to be about as relevant today as the United Nations’ Charter.

Trump’s admixture of threats, lies and vainglorious boasts was all “mankind” was getting. Having delivered his proclamation, the President and his bevy of bemedaled generals turned on their heels and left the room by the same high doors through which they had entered, which then closed insolently behind them. So, one imagines, did Roman Emperors pronounce upon the affairs of empire: briskly, brusquely, and with the just the right “sneer of cold command”.

When Iran’s secular, democratically-elected Prime Minister, Mossadegh, was deposed by the joint machinations of Britain’s MI6 and America’s CIA in 1953 (for the unforgiveable sin of attempting to use Iran’s oil for the benefit of Iran’s people!) their involvement was a closely guarded secret. Caught in the Manichean coils of the Cold War, the USA had to at least pretend to be the champion of freedom and popular sovereignty. Seventy years later, however, America doesn’t feel the need to even try. What the Iranian political class learned behind closed doors in 1953: that their country’s future was now in American hands; Donald Trump shares openly and unashamedly with the whole world in 2020.

And yet, the Shah imposed upon them in 1953 was himself deposed in the Iranian Revolution of 1978, and the present Islamic Republic proclaimed the following year. Nothing in this world lasts forever. Not Shahs; not Ayatollahs; not Generals: not even Presidents. It was the ancestors of present-day Iranians who invented the game of Chess. A pity then, for the American people, that Donald Trump has yet to master the game of Checkers.

As New Zealanders, we all agree that children should be able to live good lives, and have all the support they need to thrive. But families suffering hardship in our country are being forced to navigate difficult and stressful processes to access supplementary assistance for basic needs such as food. Obtaining advance benefit payments and recoverable grants creates debt to Work and Income, with repayments meaning less income than before, reinforcing hardship in a vicious cycle of hopelessness.

CPAG joins the call from MoneyTalks financial mentor Adrienne Gallie for the Government to urgently respond to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s recommendation to increase benefits.

“Work and Income are referring many people, who apply for supplementary assistance, back to agencies for budgeting assistance and mentoring. But those at the coalface of these services are very clear that it is lack of income, not lack of ability to budget that is causing the hardship,” says Associate Professor Susan St John, CPAG’s Economics Advisor.

“It is a destructive, frustrating, time-consuming and unacceptable situation. Poverty in New Zealand is a national crisis, with deprivation affecting children with devastating long-term costs to them and to society. Our paediatricians are seeing abnormally high rates of poverty-related diseases and children with multiple learning issues. This is not a country that is the best place in the world for bringing up children.”

CPAG was hopeful that 2019 would have been the year of change, and that poverty would not be, once again, a major election issue.

“We urge Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who has made reducing child poverty a major aim of her Government, to make the bold changes children desperately need,” says St John.

CPAG says the Government has a responsibility to counter the negative and uninformed narrative about people on benefits and to show true leadership in this responsibility.

CPAG calls on the Government to immediately lift benefits, significantly reduce the reliance on supplementary means-tested payments, and improve the returns to part-time work on the benefit.

Furthermore, CPAG urges the Government to give all low-income families access to the full Working for Families package for the care of their children. This would cost around $0.5billion per annum and immediately make families on benefits at least $72.50 a week better off.

“There is absolutely no justification for policy that excludes the worst-off families from a tax credit that has reducing child poverty as its key aim,” says St John.

“It is not good enough to wait for Budget 2020 decisions that will take another full year to come into effect, and only if the Government is re-elected.

“Action is needed right now.”

“The proposed electorates that we’ve received the most objections about are around Auckland and in Otago and Southland,” says Representation Commission chair, Judge Craig Thompson.

“Some of the objections are about keeping communities together,” says Judge Thompson. “Other objections are about the names of some electorates and we’ve received suggestions for names that people feel better reflect those areas.”

People can comment on the objections from 10 to 24 January 2020.

“We’ll be taking all submissions into account before finalising the electorate boundaries and names in April for the 2020 and 2023 elections,” says Judge Thompson.

The proposed electorates that received the most objections are:

• Whangaparāoa (21) – objections are mostly about the name of the electorate. Hibiscus Cost is suggested as an alternative.
• Helensville (58) – the majority of objectors oppose the name Helensville. Suggested names include Rodney, Atanui, Mahurangi and Kaipara.
• Manukau East (64) – this electorate attracted the most boundary objections on community of interest grounds. The main concern is the inclusion of the area around Panmure in Manukau East, separating Panmure from Mt Wellington.
• Papakura (22) – most support the proposed boundary changes in Papakura.
• Flat Bush (22) – a number of objectors suggest adding areas from the current Botany and Manurewa electorates to this new south Auckland electorate. Alternative names suggested are Takanini, Flat Bush-Takanini, Manukau South, Manurewa East, Totara and Totara Park.
• West Coast-Tasman (12) – a number of objectors oppose Brightwater being included in the electorate.
• Christchurch East (2) – 122 people signed a petition opposing the inclusion of Bromley up to Linwood Avenue in the electorate.
• Dunedin North (9) and Dunedin South (12) – objections mostly relate to the proposed boundaries, including adding Otago Peninsula to Dunedin North and Balclutha to Dunedin South.
• Clutha-Southland (16) – a number of objectors suggest creating a central Otago or Southern Lakes electorate with a focus on tourist areas.
• Invercargill (17) – objectors oppose the inclusion of Winton in the Invercargill electorate.

More information about making a counter-objection can be found online at www.vote.nz. Public hearings of submissions will be held in February.

“Now is the time for restraint and de-escalation, and for diplomacy to take over,” Mr Peters said.

“It is important to note that the missile attacks did not target Camp Taji and the Government has been informed that all New Zealand personnel are as safe as they can be in these developing circumstances.

“The Government is working actively with our partners through military and diplomatic channels, and we continue to keep the security situation under close review, including implications for our personnel,” Mr Peters said.

The Bill specifies a requirement for the Parole Board to only “consider” denying parole if an offender refuses to disclose the location of the body.

“If Mr Macindoe really believed in this Bill he would resubmit it making the denial of parole mandatory not just a consideration, says New Zealand First Law and Order Spokesperson Darroch Ball.

“Added to that is the fact it’s just common sense that a Parole Board already considers a non-disclosed body in their decision making.

“There have only ever been two reported cases of convicted murderers released on parole where a body has not been disclosed out of almost 3000 murder convictions in the last century.

“This Bill isn’t even a solution looking for a problem,” says Mr Ball.

Organise Aotearoa says that this signals a potential beginning of a new epoch of conventional warfare between world and regional powers, and is concerned New Zealand will be drawn into conflict as a signatory to ANZUS and the Five Eyes Agreement, and as a major non-NATO ally.

“We stand firmly against this new threat to the lives of millions of people, especially those who have already suffered so much at the hands of outside aggressors in Central and West Asia,” says OA spokesperson Kate McIntyre.

“Iran is a beautiful country with a history that stretches back thousands of years, and its people have already lived through decades of war and US sanctions. We will not see New Zealand troops acting as invaders, murderers, or accessories in war crimes.”

In addition to calls to immediately withdraw all NZDF personnel from Iraq and end direct military cooperation between the US and the New Zealand Government, Organise Aotearoa is demanding an end to all forms of indirect support, such as fleet basing rights, arms sales, security contracting, and intelligence sharing.

“We pledge firmly to never support such a war, and that we will be seeking an alliance with all of those in Aotearoa who would see us pull out of all military and security treaties with the United States, and any other potential party in the coming war.”

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The attacks by both the United States and Iran threatens to plunge the world into a war it can neither afford nor tolerate. Decades of foreign involvement in the region has brought us no closer to peace; it is time for a full withdrawal by foreign powers from the Middle East.

“We are deeply troubled to learn of further violence in the Middle East; firstly, attacks by President Donald Trump, killing General Soleimani, and retaliatory attacks by Tehran on Iraqi military bases, potentially housing Australian and New Zealand Citizens,” said Australia and New Zealand Programs Associate, John Gray.

“History has shown us that violent conflict in the region has never resulted in a quick resolution, often putting innocent civilians in harm’s way. War benefits only special interests, taking money out of the pockets of hard-working Australians and New Zealanders – an unforgiveable act, especially in the current climate.

“The United States government has once again declared an intent to commit atrocities in the region and this will not be limited to military personnel or equipment. We stand in solidarity with our fellow students throughout the Middle East and push firmly against military actions that harm our future.

“The Iraqi parliament has called on US troops to leave the country;” said Gray. “It is high time we stopped endorsing imperialism over self-governance and sovereignty and finally put an end to foreign involvement in the region. Australia and New Zealand Students For Liberty strongly urge their respective governments to withdraw troops from the region – bring our people home.”