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Political Caption Competition

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Daily Blog Guerrilla Radio – Propellerheads – You Want It Back

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TDB Top 5 International Stories: Thursday 24th February 2017

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5: Inside the Final Days of the Standing Rock Protest

By early February, just two weeks after Trump signed a presidential memorandum to expedite construction of the pipeline, the ten thousand people who had been there had been weeded down to a few hundred.

Nancy Shomin first came to Standing Rock back in September after a stint in recovery for alcoholism. She was born in Flint, Michigan and had been the only native girl in her elementary school. Her father couldn’t stop Nancy’s classmates from bullying her, but he tried to balance his daughter’s loneliness with a steady exposure to tribal customs and rituals. Her life had been spent in and out of institutions—prison, rehab, therapy. In rehab, Nancy tried to process what had happened to her during a violent childhood, but she found that she was constantly doubting the veracity of her memories. She decided to head to Standing Rock because a friend had put out a call on Facebook. When Nancy first saw line of tipis by the Missouri River, she felt the neurosis of recovery melt away.

Nancy quickly committed herself to life as a water protector. She went on marches to the pipeline construction site, got arrested, and spent time in jail. Whenever she would leave camp to see her family back in Michigan, she would feel a creeping unease—what was she missing back in camp? Did the resistance still need her? She kept coming back to North Dakota and started picking up the camp’s dual languages of activism and spirituality. She was no longer at Standing Rock to block the construction of the pipeline and protect the waters of the Missouri River from contamination but also to decolonize herself in a sacred space of prayer. At the front lines, where water protectors faced off with Morton County sheriff’s deputies and the National Guard, Nancy played the role of a “watcher”—she made sure the situation was in some semblance of control.

Vice News

4: UN decries Israel’s West Bank demolition order

The United Nations has raised concerns over a newly announced demolition plan in a Palestinian Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank that threatens dozens of buildings including a primary school.

“This is unacceptable and it must stop,” Robert Piper, UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said on Wednesday.

Piper visited the village where the primary school is among 140 structures at risk of demolition.

Aljazeera

3: “A Deportation Force on Steroids”: Millions of Immigrants Could Face Removal Under New Trump Rules

The White House is moving to greatly expand the Department of Homeland Security’s authority to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and to increase the number of immigration and Border Patrol agents by 15,000. Under rules issued on Tuesday, almost any undocumented person in the country could be detained and deported, even if they have never committed a crime. A traffic violation or mere suspicion of committing a crime could now be grounds for deportation. Any immigrant who cannot prove they have been in the United States for over two years could be deported without a hearing. Any migrant, regardless of their nationality, who crosses the southern border will be deported to Mexico while they await deportation hearings. The memos also call for the prosecution of parents who seek to reunite their family by using smugglers to bring their children into the country. We speak to University of Michigan Law School professor Margo Schlanger, who served as the head of civil rights and civil liberties at the Department of Homeland Security, and Cesar Vargas, co-director of DREAM Action Coalition. He is New York state’s first openly undocumented attorney.

Democracy Now

2: Thrilling discovery of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby star

A huddle of seven worlds, all close in size to Earth, and perhaps warm enough for water and the life it can sustain, has been spotted around a small, faint star in the constellation of Aquarius.

The discovery, which has thrilled astronomers, has raised hopes that the hunt for alien life beyond the solar system could start much sooner than previously thought, with the next generation of telescopes that are due to switch on in the next decade.

It is the first time that so many Earth-sized planets have been found in orbit around the same star, an unexpected haul that suggests the Milky Way may be teeming with worlds that, in size and firmness underfoot at least, resemble our own rocky home.

The Guardian 

1: HOW PETER THIEL’S PALANTIR HELPED THE NSA SPY ON THE WHOLE WORLD

DONALD TRUMP HAS inherited the most powerful machine for spying ever devised. How this petty, vengeful man might wield and expand the sprawling American spy apparatus, already vulnerable to abuse, is disturbing enough on its own. But the outlook is even worse considering Trump’s vast preference for private sector expertise and new strategic friendship with Silicon Valley billionaire investor Peter Thiel, whose controversial (and opaque) company Palantir has long sought to sell governments an unmatched power to sift and exploit information of any kind. Thiel represents a perfect nexus of government clout with the kind of corporate swagger Trump loves. The Intercept can now reveal that Palantir has worked for years to boost the global dragnet of the NSA and its international partners, and was in fact co-created with American spies.

Peter Thiel became one of the American political mainstream’s most notorious figures in 2016 (when it emerged he was bankrolling a lawsuit against Gawker Media, my former employer) even before he won a direct line to the White House. Now he brings to his role as presidential adviser decades of experience as kingly investor and token nonliberal on Facebook’s board of directors, a Rolodex of software luminaries, and a decidedly Trumpian devotion to controversy and contrarianism. But perhaps the most appealing asset Thiel can offer our bewildered new president will be Palantir Technologies, which Thiel founded with Alex Karp and Joe Lonsdale in 2004.

The Intercept 

 

 

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The Daily Blog Open Mic – Thursday 23rd February 2017

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openmike

 

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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Labour’s Not Burning Crosses – It’s Gathering Votes

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WHAT I HEARD from Willie Jackson and Sandra Lee this morning (22/2/17) didn’t sound at all like “cross burning”. What I heard on RNZ’s “Morning Report” was a discussion about Maori need and the most effective ways to address it. I also heard some pretty frank criticism of the Maori elite and its principal political mouthpiece.

Neither Lee nor Jackson were willing to repudiate Andrew Little’s blunt refusal to accept the Maori Party’s political credentials. What they did repudiate was the selective historical memory of Tariana Turia and her ilk.

If Jackson’s recruitment encourages other Maori to speak out in similarly blunt terms about the true agenda of the Maori Party and the Iwi Leadership Group, then the electoral dividend for Labour will be substantial.

Because no about of social-liberal outrage can obscure the fact that the Maori Party long ago abandoned the cause of working-class Maori in favour of a neo-tribal capitalist system which is busy swelling the ranks of a new Maori professional and managerial class.

Not that such outrage isn’t extremely helpful. Without it, the crucial role which the Maori Party plays in blurring the edges of the National Party’s continuing assault upon the brown working-class might come into sharper focus.

By interposing themselves between National’s neoliberal economic policies and the people they purport to represent, the Maori Party not only protects its political patron from the consequences of its own social aggression; but it also furnishes its voters with “proof” of “their” party’s relevance and effectiveness.

The message is as simple as it is cynical: “Just imagine how bad things would be if we weren’t here to keep all those crazy conservative Pakehas from running wild!”

The Ratana Church’s Depression-era alliance with Labour was likely born out of a similar rationale. The big difference, of course, was that Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana joined forces with the Pakeha poor to end their common marginalisation at the hands of a ruling class made vicious by social fear and political rage. He knew that the ruling elites of both peoples could only be controlled by “the survivors” of colonialism and capitalism, brown and white, working together.

The Maori Party, by contrast, almost immediately shed its mass base in favour of a cross-cultural class alliance between the Maori and Pakeha elites. While the National Party’s accelerated Treaty settlement process helpfully expanded the Maori middle-class, the Maori Party maintained a deafening silence as neoliberal economic and social policies wreaked havoc upon its own people. It was a Devil’s bargain: in return for abandoning the constituency which had given the Maori Party birth, the National Party was growing it a new one.

It was this shameless collaborationism that drove Hone Harawira out of the Maori Party and into the cross-cultural alliance of Maori and Pakeha socialists that used to be Mana. Harawira wagered that his tactical association with Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party would provide Mana with a parliamentary beach-head larger than Te Tai Tokerau and sufficient List MPs to make a difference. He lost.

The kindest thing that might be said about Harawira’s latest gambit is that it is motivated solely by his determination to get Mana back into Parliament. The less kindly among us, however, might wonder aloud, as Sandra Lee did this morning, about the political efficacy of an agreement which debars Mana from standing in any Maori seat but Te Tai Tokerau, and which prohibits criticism of both the Maori Party’s record and its policies. Hone Harawira owes his followers a clearer explanation.

Social-liberal criticism (backing-up that of Turia and Pita Sharples) will, of course, focus on Labour’s handling of the foreshore and seabed issue.

In the best of all possible worlds the Court of Appeal’s unexpected decision would have been welcomed with open arms by a Labour Party determined to build upon and strengthen the Maori renaissance. Conveniently forgotten by Labour’s Maori and Pakeha critics, however, is the hostile political reception given to Helen Clark’s attempt to do just that.

The National Party had attacked Labour’s “Closing the Gaps” policy relentlessly – not hesitating to wake up the sleeping dogs of Pakeha racism if that was what it took to reclaim the Treasury Benches.

Already spooked by the “Winter of Discontent” of 2000 (when New Zealand’s leading capitalists threatened the new Labour-led government with a full-scale investment strike if Clark and her Finance Minister, Michael Cullen, refused to rein-in the radical expectations of their Alliance coalition partner) the Labour prime minister took another step back and hastily abandoned the term, if not the substance of, “Closing the Gaps”. She was in no mood to let the National Party hang the Court of Appeal’s judgement around her neck and sink Labour’s chances of winning the 2005 election.

That Labour’s Foreshore & Seabed Act (2004) was in practical terms indistinguishable from the Marine & Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act (2011) which Tariana Turia accepted without protest from her National Party allies seven years later, speaks volumes about the lengths to which Clark, Cullen and Labour’s Maori caucus were prepared to go to protect Maori interests – even as they were being pilloried as the reincarnation of the nineteenth century’s most hateful colonialists.

Those who have spent the last 48 hours condemning Andrew Little for his attack on the Maori Party would undoubtedly benefit from watching the movie All The Way. Covering Lyndon Johnson’s first year as President of the USA (1963-1964) it is a riveting portrayal of just how difficult it is to challenge the racist expectations of an overwhelmingly white electorate – let alone overcome them.

To remind passionate seekers-after-change that politics is “the art of the possible” is to repeat a cliché they have heard many times before. Repetition does not, however, make it any the less true. To win power, Andrew Little needs the Maori working-class to remain loyal to Labour. That will not happen if the Maori Party is allowed to paint every expression of Pakeha political criticism as “racist”, and to dismiss every left-wing Maori critic as an “Uncle Tom”.

As Lyndon Johnson put it to his tender-hearted liberal running-mate, Hubert Humphrey: “Principles? Principles! Dammit! This isn’t about principles – it’s about votes!”

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Amnesty International Report 2016/17: The State of the World’s Human Rights

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‘Politics of demonisation’ breeding division and fear

Today Amnesty International releases its yearly report, The State of the World’s Human Rights, which delivers a comprehensive analysis of human rights across 159 countries, including New Zealand. The global picture highlights politicians wielding a toxic, dehumanising “us vs them” rhetoric, creating a more divided and dangerous world.

“Fear-mongering is becoming the norm. Today’s politics of demonisation is selling a dangerous idea that some people are less human than others, leaving refugees and other vulnerable groups to suffer the consequences,” said Grant Bayldon, Executive Director of Amnesty International New Zealand.

Human Rights in New Zealand
While alarm bells are ringing in war zones and hotspots around the world, New Zealand does not escape unscathed in the report. Of particular concern are disproportionately high rates of Māori incarceration in the criminal justice system, child poverty and domestic violence, as also highlighted by a number of UN human rights groups.

Regarding refugees and asylum seekers, modest progress was made with the announcement to increase the annual refugee quota from 750 to 1000 by the year 2018.

“While the increase was a step in the right direction, it wasn’t enough given the scale of the crisis. We could have done so much more.

“Amnesty International also welcomed New Zealand’s renewed offer to accept 150 refugees from Australia’s offshore detention centres on Nauru and Manus. However the government’s failure to speak out about Australia’s cruel and inhumane offshore detention policy remains a huge disappointment,” said Bayldon.

A global slippery slope
The trend of angrier and more divisive politics was exemplified by Donald Trump’s poisonous campaign rhetoric, but he was not alone in spreading a narrative of fear, blame and division.

In 2016, governments turned on refugees and migrants. The report documents how 36 countries violated international law by sending refugees back to a country where they face persecution or war.

Meanwhile, Australia continues to purposefully inflict terrible suffering by trapping refugees on Nauru and Manus Island, while Mexico and the US deport people fleeing rampant violence in Central America.

“Instead of protecting people’s rights, many world leaders have opted to scapegoat certain groups in order to win political favour,” said Bayldon. “Refugees have often been the first target. If things continue in this way, we’ll see more and more people being attacked on the basis of religion, gender, race and nationality.”

Who is going to stand up for human rights?
Amnesty International is calling on people around the world to resist cynical efforts to roll back long-established human rights. Progress made towards social justice and equality has been hard fought and won. It will only continue with individual people acting together in mass solidarity to protect our fundamental freedoms.

“We simply can’t sit back and rely on our governments to stand up for human rights. It’s down to people like you and me to take action, influence our governments and defend human dignity,” said Bayldon.

In 2016, Amnesty International has documented grave violations of human rights in 159 countries. Examples of the rise and impact of poisonous rhetoric, national crackdowns on activism and freedom of expression highlighted by Amnesty International in its Annual Report include, but are by no means limited, to:

Bangladesh: Instead of providing protection for or investigating the killings of activists, reporters and bloggers, authorities have pursued trials against media and the opposition for, among other things, Facebook posts.

China: Ongoing crackdown against lawyers and activists continued, including incommunicado detention, televised confessions and harassments of family members.

DRC: Pro-democracy activists subjected to arbitrary arrests and, in some cases, prolonged incommunicado detention.

Egypt: Authorities used travel bans, financial restrictions and asset freezes to undermine, smear and silence civil society groups.

Ethiopia: A government increasingly intolerant of dissenting voices used anti-terror laws and a state of emergency to crack down on journalists, the political opposition and, in particular, protesters, who have been met with excessive and lethal force.

France: Heavy-handed security measures under the prolonged state of emergency have included thousands of house searches, as well as travel bans and detentions.

Honduras: Berta Cáceres and seven other human rights activists were killed.

Hungary: Government rhetoric championed a divisive brand of identity politics and a dark vision of “Fortress Europe”, which translated into a policy of systematic crackdown on refugee and migrants rights.

India: Oppressive laws have been used to try to silence student activists, academics and journalists.

Iran: Heavy suppression of freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and religious beliefs. Peaceful critics jailed after grossly unfair trials before Revolutionary Courts, including journalists, lawyers, bloggers, students, women’s rights activists, filmmakers and even musicians.

Myanmar: Tens of thousands of Rohingya people – who remain deprived of a nationality – displaced by “clearance operations” amid reports of unlawful killings, indiscriminate firing on civilians, rape and arbitrary arrests.

Philippines: A wave of extrajudicial executions ensued after President Duterte promised to kill tens of thousands of people suspected of being involved in the drug trade.

Russia: The government noose tightened around national NGOs, with increasing propaganda labelling critics as “undesirable” or “foreign agents”, and the first prosecution of NGOs under a “foreign agents” law. Abroad there was a complete disregard for international humanitarian law in Syria.

Saudi Arabia: Government critics have been detained and jailed on vaguely worded charges such as “insulting the state”. Coalition forces bombed schools, hospitals, markets and mosques in Yemen, killing and injuring thousands of civilians using internationally banned cluster bombs supplied by the US and UK.

South Sudan: Ongoing fighting continued to have devastating humanitarian consequences for civilian populations, with violations and abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law.

Sudan: Evidence pointed strongly to the use of chemical weapons by government forces in Darfur. Elsewhere, suspected opponents and critics of the government subjected to arbitrary arrests and detentions. Excessive use of force by the authorities in dispersing gatherings led to numerous casualties.

Syria: Impunity for war crimes and gross human rights abuses continued, including indiscriminate attacks and lengthy sieges that trapped civilians. The human rights community has been almost completely crushed, with activists either imprisoned, tortured, disappeared, or forced to flee the country.

Thailand: Emergency powers, defamation and sedition laws used to restrict freedom of expression.

Turkey: Tens of thousands locked up after failed coup, with hundreds of NGOs suspended, a massive media crackdown, and the continuing onslaught in Kurdish areas.

UK: A spike in hate crimes followed the referendum on European Union membership. A new surveillance law granted significantly increased powers to intelligence and other agencies to invade people’s privacy.

USA: An election campaign marked by discriminatory, misogynist and xenophobic rhetoric raised serious concerns about the strength of future US commitments to human rights domestically and globally.

Venezuela: Backlash against outspoken human rights defenders who raised the alarm about the humanitarian crisis caused by the government’s failure to meet the economic and social rights of the population.

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Fun Police fail to Crop TOP

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The Electoral Commission has this afternoon cleared The Opportunities Party (TOP) of any wrong doing in their campaign for the Mt Albert by-election after failing to uphold a complaint by David Seymour of ACT.

Mr Seymour had complained that TOP was using a sign-written van to influence voters by offering them rides.

TOP’s candidate, Geoff Simmons, said that voters in the Mt Albert electorate were intelligent people and passengers weren’t influenced.

“We were offering people a ride who had parked miles away. We had an empty 12-seater van. It was just common sense,” he said.

TOP Leader, Gareth Morgan, said it was typical of ACT to focus on nonsense.

“Every other major party is driving a massive coordinated effort and an army of volunteers to win Mt Albert. We drive a van and Seymour complains,” Morgan said. “He’s either trying to shoe horn himself into relevance or he’s really worried about The Opportunities Party. Probably both.”

Seymour had called TOPs actions ‘bribery’ and wanted the matter referred to the police.

Simmons said they’d love to give people more rides but ACT or some other ‘nanny state wowsers’ might give it another crack with the Electoral Commission.

“We’ll be out and about in the vans this week in a last push for Mt Albert. If you see us just give us a smile and a wave – sorry we can’t pick you up,” he said.

Simmons said feedback from passengers who took up the opportunity of a ride in an air conditioned van on a steaming Auckland day was that they had thought it was the decent thing to do.

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Why is AUT sponsoring right wing posturing pretending to be journalism?

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The associate professor of politics at Canterbury University has every right to feel pissed off.

The Spinoff is a copy for cash hipster website. Pay the dollars and you get the story you want. Dressed up with lots of middle class pretensions masquerading as opinion, it is run by a man who felt that being invited to a Mediaworks season launch in 2014 made him feel proud to be a New Zealander.

Currently they are trying to pimp their interests via a ‘people’s commission on public broadcasting‘ which would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

The real question here is why are AUT sponsoring right wing think tanks spinning their corporate masters propaganda. There is  a story on there right now being pimped by the bloody NZ Initiative.

This is the future of Journalism? A site that takes money for copy and it’s never exactly clear who is paying for what.  Wow, the hard right think tank doesn’t think a tax on sugar drinks works, what a fucking surprise.

Cameron Slater used to do this shit, he took cash from right wing industry to attack and denigrate health officials who demanded change, The Spinoff just makes that process look more palatable because it’s framed as a ‘debate’ with Julie Anne Genter.

Remember, this is The Spinoffs charter…

…Hipster millennial media is just as hollow and compromised as mainstream media.

The Daily Blog has advertisers and sponsored blogs – they are clearly marked advert and ‘sponsored’ blog, there is no pretence or blurring of lines.

Someone should be asking some hard questions of why AUT is supporting a glammed up version of Cameron Slater.

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Dear NZ – The sooner we realise National have no interest in solving the Housing Crisis, the sooner we can organise to vote them out

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Surprise, surprise…

Govt’s plan to build houses on excess crown land hits another roadblock

The Government’s plan to build houses on excess crown land has hit another roadblock. Three sites earmarked for housing can’t actually be built on.

Building and Construction Minister Nick Smith showed off spare Government land during a bus tour in 2015 as sites he wanted to put houses on.

Fast forward a couple of years, and there’s a problem.

His officials have deemed the Wiri Station Rd site in Auckland “not viable for residential development”.

The minister was too busy to talk to us on Tuesday so he left the explaining to the Prime Minister, who told Newshub: “There’s been a lot of bumps, some speed bumps but some just trying to get the thing up and going.”

One of those speed bumps was revelations that the Government didn’t actually own the land – most of it belonged to the Council.

Mr Smith pushed ahead, adamant they’d build anyway – but it’s not going to happen.

Labour leader Andrew Little said it’s been a shambles.

“There’s been so many stuff ups, cock ups, muck ups, I’m not sure the guy’s got any shame left.”

Mr Smith issued a statement to Newshub saying that out of all the land he showed off on his 2015 bus tour, this block at Wiri was the only one that wasn’t going ahead. The statement listed four developments that are going ahead – with a total of 476 homes.

The Auckland sites currently being developed through the Crown Land Programme are:

Moire Road, Massey, 196 dwellings
Great North Road, Waterview, 120 dwellings
New North Road, Mt Albert, 100 dwellings
Titoki Street, Te Atatu, 60 dwellings

But on top of not being able to build on Wiri Station Rd, Manukau Station Rd will have 100 fewer homes than planned, Mihini Rd hasn’t been vacated by KiwiRail so it can’t be used and Luke St has already been snatched for a pop up temporary housing site.

“This is now standard operating procedure for Nick Smith, to tell everybody that there’s a big plan and it turns out no homework has been done,” Mr Little says.

…Folks, I appreciate that it’s difficult to admit that you’ve been duped, but you have been. National have zero, let me say that again, ZERO, interest in fixing the Housing Crisis.

Sure, National care about looking like that are doing something, but it’s all smoke and mirrors.

The property bubble that National have been inflating with the open flood gates approach to immigration that is seeing 70 000 a year pouring in on top of the 250 000 student/worker visas (many of whom are being exploited once they arrive here) is what is driving the Housing Crisis and National will never crack down on that because they need the property bubble to keep NZs inflated GDP rates up.

Nick Smith wandering around like a lost infant on sites where he can’t build a thing sums up the intellectual dishonesty of National’s position. They cling to power because the middle classes who have traditionally challenged the Government on inequality and poverty are as silent as mice now they’re all property speculating paper millionaires.

By irresponsibly inflating a property bubble that they now can’t afford to damage, National  have caught a tiger by the tail that they can’t find any way of letting go without it mauling them.

Meanwhile entire generations of NZers are being locked out of home ownership.

 

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It’s supposed to be a broad church, not a cross burning one – Labour’s tin ear towards the Maori Party and MANA

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Andrew Little’s working class credentials on display.

I like Andrew Little, I think he will make an amazing Prime Minister once we gain a change of Government in September but his recent comments against the Māori Party and MANA suggest a tin ear. Kelvin Davis is also sounding a tad out of touch with all his current bluster.

Lecturing Māori on kaupapa māori politics is pretty dangerous ground for a Political Party that confiscated the entire seabed and foreshore.

From Labour’s perspective, the Māori Party’s desire to sit at the table with National means they are a threat and it’s a tactical position that has seen the Māori Party being accused by many Māori for being sell outs, but this election could end up creating a very different kind of Government.

After MANA and the Māori Party adopted the very strategy I’d suggested months ago, they are now in a position to make some genuine gains at the election, but those won’t mean a damned thing if they simply go back to National.

Currently National are re-iterating that it is still their policy to end the Māori electorates. For National their relationship with the Māori Party was always political camouflage so that the true spite of their welfare policies was tempered by their ‘we’ve got Māori mates’ veneer, so that table setting that the Māori Party have clung to means nothing right now.

Tariana Turia has made the current Māori Party Leadership  promise that they won’t go with Labour, this promise has to be ignored or over ruled because there is no victory in gaining more political representation if no major party will work with them.

Right now sitting in front of the Māori Party is their out. The new CYFs legislation that will ignore placing a taken child back with Māori whanau has all the ingredients of a new stolen generation. National are hell bent on pushing the reforms through because their privatisation of CYFs requires outside agencies getting bonuses for removing and re-settling children as quickly as possible so the stats look good.

Currently CYFs do a shit job of finding other appropriate whanau and because many Māori would prefer drinking a bucket of cold vomit than have any contact with state agencies whom they see as abusive, racist and counter productive, many intentionally go off the radar so that they can’t be contacted.

National are trying to remedy this deep suspicion by simply removing the need to find them in the first place and just place any children they take into ‘care’ (remember many children are abused while in state ‘care’) with any family regardless of the cultural disorientation and dislocation that creates.

This is the Māori Party’s opportunity to break with National and publicly declare their preference to work with any new Government post the election for the best outcome of our most vulnerable children.

Meanwhile, Andrew Little needs to remember the enemy is the National Party, not indigenous political representation.

 

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Corporate Welfare – Whose rules rule?

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The new data on inequality from Oxfam shows an even more obscene disparity than previous reports – 8 billionaires owning more than half the world’s population and two billionaires in New Zealand owning more than the poorest 30% of New Zealanders. This is not inevitable. It results from rules that favour the rich and penalise the poor.  

As US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, ‘We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we cannot have both.’ The US political system has shaped the rules in favour of the wealthy and corporate interests for many decades before the current Trump regime, but the warning is also relevant for New Zealand.

Behind a smiling face and a moderate appearance, this government has been relentless in further orienting the rules to favour the billionaires, foreign investors and multinationals, while relentlessly targeting the vulnerable in society with endless compliance demands and vindictive administration of our benefits schemes. Meanwhile our democratic rights are being eroded by the politicisation of the civil services, quangos stuffed full of business allies and the expansion of Ministerial discretion. The result is entrenchment of a deeply unfair system.

Over the period of this government, tax rates for the wealthy and business have been cut, foreign trusts have made New Zealand an integral part of the system of tax havens, there have been sweetheart deals with Sky City and other corporations and the rules have been skewed to benefit foreign investors and big business interests.

The contrast is startling. The Serious Fraud Office estimates welfare fraud of $80 million per year, and tax evasion of a far higher $2bn per year $7bn per year according to the Tax Justice Network). But researchers estimate that around 1000 people were charged for welfare fraud while 80 people were charged for tax evasion. One set of rules for the rich and another set of rules for the poor.

While the government says there’s no more money for beneficiaries, they have facilitated $30 million profit made by Peter Thiel’s foreign investment fund, using a mix of their funds and government money. Our taxpayer share of the profits went into the pocket of the foreign investor. Taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

The problem is not just corporate welfare but the continuation of so-called ‘light regulation’ (often voluntary codes or no regulation at all) to benefit particular business interests. New Zealand has a long list of deregulation that has socialised the costs of private greed, stretching back to finance company collapses, the Pike River disaster, leaky homes and collapsed buildings. These costs borne by taxpayers, amount to billions of dollars. The human costs include the loss of too many lives.

A recent example of lax regulation to pump up short term profits at any costs, has been shown by the exploitation of Indian students, not only victims of fraud but then deported. An apparently booming education sector looks good for GDP, but delivers poor outcomes for the students and damages New Zealand’s reputation abroad.

More examples are shown in the government’s recklessness in allowing speculation and profiteering in the housing market, failing to crack down on cartels, caving in to lobbying for delays to anti-money laundering rules and failing to end the secrecy and abuse of foreign trusts.

This continues a long list of deals that favour foreign investors and the government’s desperate attempt to lock in rights for foreign investors to sue our government if regulation adversely impacts their profits. Thankfully the TPPA has been rejected after a huge global campaign (another defeat for corporate lobbyists on investor rights). Bill English’s attempts to revive the TPPA are flogging a dead horse.

It’s time we got our priorities right. The Green Party would crack down on corporate welfare – no more welfare for Peter Thiel, no Sky City sweetheart deals, no Hobbit deals, no more bailouts of Southland Finance and no sweetheart privatisation deals. We would regulate the economy in the public interest.

We would ensure that there was a comprehensive capital gains tax, so those who are wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. And we would close the loopholes that allow multinationals and tax evaders to use transfer pricing and tax havens to evade paying their taxes.

We will support sound business that benefits communities and our economy, especially small business and companies that add value to our natural resources rather than exporting unprocessed commodities. We will enhance education and training and seek to create more opportunities in the growing sectors of clean technology and ICT, rather than propping up polluting industries and fossil fuel extraction.

And we would support the vulnerable in our society, through policies that will be rolled out in the forthcoming election campaign, to reform welfare, enhance support for kids and families, and create a more caring and more equal society. Roll on 23rd September – it’s time to change the government!

Barry Coates MP is the Green Party spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Trade and Investment, Gambling and a few other issues. www.greens.org.nz

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David Macpherson – Nicky Stevens’ care was of a “good standard” – Yeah, Right.

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Mental health symbol conceptual design isolated on white background

For this Blog, I am writing primarily about how the Waikato DHB has handled the death of my son, Nicky Stevens, while a patient under compulsory care in their mental health unit, some 2 years ago.

However, Nicky’s story is, tragically but strikingly, very similar to dozens of other stories of death and harm caused to and by mental health patients, when so-called care organisations have ignored families, and ignored warning signs so obvious that Blind Freddy could see them.

Our family has been (I believe deliberately) outraged to see that the official DHB ’serious incident report’ has claimed – in its opening statement – that the care Nicky received “whilst in Henry Rongomau Bennett Centre was of a good standard”.

Nicky died while in the DHB’s care, after they were warned by the family (in writing and in meetings) of his high suicide risk if let out of the Hospital unsupervised.

The DHB’s response has after 2 years to produce a backside-covering report, clearly designed to justify the DHB staff and management actions, and inaction, that led to Nicky’s death.

Last week our family met with the DHB Chair, CEO and mental health boss, to “discuss the findings” and hear the DHB “offer an apology on behalf of the Waikato DHB for shortcomings in our processes”.

We told the DHB bosses we did not accept for one minute that allowing a patient, who had clearly demonstrated a high risk of suicide, to take unescorted leave on numerous occasions, against the wishes and pleas of his family and friends, suggests anything “good” about the standard of care provided to Nicky. No reasonable New Zealander would think that Nicky was well cared for by Waikato DHB.

We refused to accept their mealy-mouthed faux apology.

The family believes that, had their verbal and written requests for Nicky not to be given unescorted leave been followed, and had DHB management promises (to ensure just that) been actioned, Nicky would likely be alive today.

Despite the ridiculous claim that Nicky received a good standard of care from the DHB, their self-chosen review group have reported a long list of failings in Nicky’s care in the areas of:
• Inadequate and confusing patient risk assessment (the DHB Policy having expired over 2 years before Nicky’s death)
• A leave process and leave approvals that were contradictory and confusing to staff, management and family
• Inadequate and only partially followed procedures for handling the AWOL situation in Nicky’s case
• A lack of formal family involvement in Nicky’s care, despite his request that they be involved
• A lack of medication management and follow-up, plus evidence that he may have been on incorrect medication
How these failings can add up to a “good standard” of care is beyond the family’s comprehension, and suggests the DHB spin doctors have invented a Trump-like set of ‘alternative facts’.

To this list, the family adds:
• The failure for two years for the DHB to say “sorry’ to Nicky’s family for their part in his death
• A total lack of bereavement support provided to the family
• The arrogance and disdain shown towards the family by a number of senior DHB clinicians
• The lack of independence of any investigation into Nicky’s death
• The full state funding of legal representation for the DHB and its staff, and for the Police, at the coming Coroner’s hearing, while the family has to meet 100% of its legal costs, after the DHB refused to assist
• The disappearance of some key medical records from Nicky’s file
• Dangerously low staffing levels, including in Nicky’s Ward on the day he disappeared
• The failure of staff to record and pass on vital factual information relating to Nicky’s care
• The effect of the DHB’s blanket ‘no-smoking’ policy on HRBC patients, forcing them literally onto the street, regardless of the risk to them or the public
• Shoddy and non-existent security and safety procedures at the HRBC, including the ward Nicky was placed in
• Ineffective management and leadership in the DHB’s mental health sector (some of whom have since, tellingly, been removed)

The family is concerned that the Coroner’s Hearing relies on this inadequate ‘Serious Incident Report’ to form the backbone of its own investigation; and have already faced a request from the senior lawyer representing the Coroner to have no hearing at all, something the family has rejected in no uncertain terms.

They have no date yet for the Coroner’s Hearing – note that some families of suicide victims are waiting over 5 years for their hearings!

WHAT IS NICKY’S FAMILY AFTER?
1 The family wants a full and unequivocal apology from the DHB for their part in Nicky’s death – he was legally placed under their ‘inpatient’ care by one of their own clinicians, authorised under the Mental Health Act.
2 They want the DHB to fund their involvement at the Coroner’s Hearing to the same level as they are funding themselves and their staff.
3 They want a public acknowledgement from the DHB that there are serious problems with the DHB’s mental health service, which leads to a community-led action plan to fix it, in the Waikato and elsewhere.
4 They want their son and brother to be remembered for the light his death has shone on some of the shortcomings in the mental health system, and the steps taken to fix them.

This country’s mental health system is stuffed. People are being harmed, and are dying to the tune of 570-plus per year, while a silly little nonentity like health ‘minister’ Jonathan Coleman parades his unconcern on every occasion there is a new horror story.

Health bosses of all stripes are instructed to be in denial, even when they have evidence of serious system failures. At some stage their dam will burst, and we can only hope that many of them are swept away by it.

 

Dave McPherson is TDBs mental health blogger and a Waikato DHB Member-elect. He ran for office after his son was killed by the mental health system in NZ.

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Why you should care about the Kafkaesque abomination that is the legal case against Kim Dotcom

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And the madness that is this  Kafkaesque case against Kim Dotcom continues, this time the Court rules that the Police had no cause to have arrested Kim on the charges of Copyright infringement, but have given our legal sovereignty over to the United States by instead finding trumped up fraud charges as the excuse to trigger extradition.

David Fisher recaps the terrible level of incompetence and acquiescence to America that John Key locked us into…

When our elite anti-terrorist police stormed the Coatesville mansion to make arrests, the warrant they issued to Dotcom cited exactly the section of the Copyright Act which the court now says in not an extraditable offence.

It’s worth considering this in context with what else happened at the time.

There were also issues with the restraining order for Dotcom’s assets. It was the first major blunder in a case which would see others.

There were innumerable issues with the search warrant – it didn’t go through the right approval channels and contained dodgy intelligence which overstated the risk.

There was also the spying failure where it turned out the Government Communications Security Bureau – partner agency to the National Security Agency – was following a rulebook written on a misunderstanding of its own law.

And so how long was it known that it might not be possible to extradite Dotcom for alleged criminal violation of the Copyright Act?

The court hearings started to feature the word “fraud” some time after the arrest. It was at least six months and possibly a year. Prior to that, all the references were about “criminal copyright”.

Just how many errors have there been in the Dotcom case? The only thorough rinse-through of any of the errors seems to the review of the GCSB by then-Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Kitteridge.

The reason it matters is that we’re still a few years away from a conclusion to this case.

…I appreciate NZers have bought into the right wing John Key narrative that Kim Dotcom is some Bond Villain who deserves to be thrown to the Americans. The unbelievable way New Zealanders and the mainstream media framed the Moment of Truth as a giant waste of time because Kim didn’t prove Key knew about him before he claimed shows the juvenile nature of our immaturity as a society.

The Moment of Truth had Assange, Greenwald and Edward Snowden prove without a shadow of a doubt that John Key had lied through his teeth about mass surveillance. It showed the NSA and CIA have staff here, it showed they planned to spike the sea cable and steal data directly from that feed and it showed that our GCSB went and met with the NSA to assure them the law Key had just pushed through allowed for mass surveillance despite Key telling the NZ public that it didn’t.

But what did NZ focus on? Kim not proving Key knew he existed before he claimed to have known.

This is us as a country…

 

So why should you care about this legal case? There are 2 reasons why you as a NZer should care about the Kim Dotcom case.

The first is the unbelievable injustice of the entire fiasco. Kim was illegally spied upon by the GCSB, he was set up by NZ immigration services so that he would enter the country in the first place, our security apparatus slavishly followed US agencies with a live feed to the NSA during the raid, the entire event was politically motivated after Corporate Hollywood threatened to with-hold donations to Obama’s Presidential bid if they didn’t make a symbolic gesture against internet piracy, and the case against him is so weak it looks like incredible over reach by our authorities and US authorities…

The A-list conspiracy: Did Hollywood tell Obama to take down internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom?

One of Dotcom’s lawyers, Robert Amsterdam, told The Independent that the criminal case against his client, which alleges that Dotcom used Megaupload as a front for a criminal enterprise that willingly shared and profited from millions of dollars’ worth of copyrighted material, is based on erroneous use of civil law and is rooted in the relationship between the upper reaches of the Democratic party and the film-making industry.

In particular, Amsterdam cites the friendship between Vice President Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and a former Senator.

According to Amsterdam and his co-counsel, the US Department of Justice is going to great lengths to prosecute, and thus appease the Hollywood lobby, using racketeering laws to bolster a weak case built on non-existent civil theories of ‘secondary copyright infringement’.

“Here you have, if you excuse me, computer geeks, and they’re being treated as if they’re the heads of the Gambino crime family,” he says.

Expanding on a white paper recently released via Dotcom’s website, Amsterdam points out that the raid on Dotcom’s mansion came on the same day as the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill designed to tackle online piracy, was shelved in US Congress after outcry from online giants such as Google and Facebook, which claimed it would curb online freedoms.

The day before, Dodd made comments implying that the MPAA would stop supporting President Obama if something was not done to tackle copyright infringement.

Dodd, a man Biden has described as one of his best friends, had told FOX News: “Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a cheque for you when you think your job is at risk, and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”

For Hollywood, a considerable amount of money is certainly at stake. The MPAA estimates that online piracy costs the US film industry around $20.5bn per year. Though critics say the true figure is in the hundreds of millions, it is still a significant loss for an industry that is already facing other funding pressures after the 2008 financial crisis.

Amsterdam argues that shutting down Megaupload, and the raid on Dotcom, was a “Plan B” to pushing through SOPA.

“I think, when the President of the Motion Picture Association, on 19 January says that if people basically don’t help him out, he’s not writing any cheques, and then on the 20 January [authorities] attack my client… and throw him in jail, there’s at least an inference there that at least requires an explanation.”

Amsterdam also points to White House logs, which show President Obama hosted Chris Dodd for a two-and-a-half hour private lunch meeting in the Oval Office on 9 December 2011, six weeks before the raid.

Though some would call this conspiratorial, and sceptics will point to the many other issues a former Senator and Hollywood bigwig would discuss at the White House, Amsterdam argues that Megaupload and its founder are likely to have cropped up.

“Starting off from all of the legal grounds that exist and moving to the political nature of the attack [we must ask] ‘was this discussed in the White House?’ and ‘who said what to whom?’,” he says.

Hollywood’s long-standing financial support for the Democrats is no secret. Amsterdam describes the relationship thus: “The MPAA is to the Democrats what the NRA is to the Republicans.”

One glitzy, celebrity-packed dinner organised by George Clooney raised $15m for Obama’s re-election campaign last year.

…this case has been an abomination of legal process, jurisdiction and injustice. You might not like Kim Dotcom, but the manner in which his rights have been breached and 70 odd armed paramilitary cops broke into his home and terrorised him and his family is as unacceptable as the abuses of power  used in court against him.

This is not what our justice system should be used for, we are not a puppet for US interests, we should be a sovereign state with our own laws and judicial system that is beyond influence by America and their corporate overlords.

I’ll appreciate if this is all news to you, because this is the current standard of political journalism in NZ…

…why tomato sauce doesn’t pour properly. That’s the standard of our journalism.

But the injustice of this case may not move you. You may have bought into the media hype of Dotcom as a Bond Villain and enjoyed his failure at the ballot box. You may have decided that despite Assange, Snowden and Greenwald proving at the Moment of Truth that John Key lied to us about mass surveillance, that Kim fell short of what he promised and he got his just desserts.

If you fall into that category then the possibility of being sued if this goes south may concern you…

New twist in Kim Dotcom case
The managers of the nation’s finances were kept at arm’s length when the Kim Dotcom case required Kiwi taxpayers to underwrite a potential future legal suit from the internet entrepreneur, a new document shows.

Instead, then-police commissioner Peter Marshall signed the “undertaking in respect to costs and damages” – the agreement which would allow Dotcom to sue New Zealand if it emerged the FBI case against him was unfair and unfounded.

It was the first time that the Crown was required to give an “undertaking” in a case where the property of someone facing charges was seized and was because the charges were brought by a foreign agency.

The need to provide an “undertaking of liability” emerged after police seized the tycoon’s cash and property without notice. The law required Dotcom have the chance to challenge the seizure and be given formal notice of his right to sue the Crown.

The need to provide an undertaking in March and April 2012 surprised the Crown and the Herald sought details of the debate and consideration over the risk to which NZ was exposed through the Official Information Act in July 2012. Treasury refused to supply the information sought so the Ombudsman was called on to investigate.

After three years of deliberation, Chief Ombudsman Dame Beverley Wakeham found there was a “public interest” which would be met by releasing a summary, which Treasury sent to the Herald this month.

The summary showed there were meetings “to discuss the case and how to inform ministers” were held Crown Law, police, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice and Treasury.

On March 22 2012 Finance minister Bill English was told he “did not have a role in approving or signing off this kind of undertaking”. Instead, it was the Commissioner of Police’s role under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act.

While Mr English was kept briefed – including a briefing from Mr Marshall and Attorney General Chris Finlayson – there was no process established through which he was able to be formally involved in the undertaking.

Under the Public Finance Act, Mr English is responsible for matters which might impact on Crown accounts. Dotcom has claimed the loss of Megaupload cost him more than $2 billion although others have argued the impact is far less.

The summary provided to the Herald said there had been a review of the mutual legal assistance framework of which Treasury was a part. It “intended to use the forum to recommend the establishment of a consultation process and set out criteria for issuing undertakings”.

The requirement to give an undertaking to the court to meet any damages was a factor which put Sony off joining a civil case seeking to claim Dotcom’s assets, emailed hacked and released last year revealed. Sony’s top copyright lawyer, Aimee Wolfson, said it was “not at all unimaginable” Dotcom would avoid extradition or even successfully defend himself in the United States.

The studio is not a participant in a case in NZ courts with discussion in the emails showing potential exposure to a legal suit from Dotcom concerning executives.

The risk to which New Zealand is exposed was underscored by a legal opinion released today from Harvard University’s professor of law Lawrence Lessig, one of the world’s leading experts on copyright law. He said the FBI charges would not stand up in US courts and there was no basis in law for Dotcom to be extradited.

…let’s re-read that again. Sony decided not to sign up to the case against Dotcom because they believed there was a chance he would get off these trumped up charges and in turn sue everyone involved in taking him down to the tune of $2billion???

And we had to sign up to this?

So how much exactly are we on the hook for here? If you don’t care that he has been unjustly dealt with and his rights breached, you may be in for one hell of a shock if he wins and we are left paying for this politically motivated prosecution.

To date this case so that John Key could get a round of golf with Obama has cost NZ $30million, it’s going to cost another $20million and if Kim wins, he will have damages in the billions to claim against NZ.

Still laughing sleepy hobbits? Perhaps the majority of NZ needs to stop sniggering and start asking some serious fucking questions here because if the Supreme Court refuses to allow America to declare they have jurisdiction in cyber space, we are on the hook for a damages case the likes we’ve never seen before.

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The horror of our Suicide Nation laid bare

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Police ‘default’ mental health service as attempted suicide call outs jump 30 per cent

A 30 per cent jump in the number of attempted suicides handled by police is an indictment on New Zealand’s mental health system, the police union says.

Police responded to just over 18,000 calls coded as “threatens/attempts suicide” across the country in 2015-16, up from 14,000 in 2012-13.

Almost every region experienced an increase in such call outs over the last four years, with Bay of Plenty jumping 44 per cent and Auckland rising 16 per cent.

Canterbury, Southern and Tasman reported increases of 40 per cent, 43 per cent and 36 per cent respectively.

NZ Police Association president Chris Cahill said the increases were an “indictment on New Zealand’s mental health service”, which left mentally unwell people to be cared for by police.

“A lot of the time there’s nowhere to take them so they get brought back to a police station and held while an authorised officer is called out to assess the person . . . this can take a large number of hours at times.”

So our Police are being forced to become the ambulance at the bottom of our suicide cliff because the Government can’t afford any fences or ambulances.

This is why it sickens me when the National Party promise tax cuts to the already rich and wealthy property speculating middle classes. We have a 30% jump in suicide attempts on top of the horrific levels of suicide we already have and what is the Government promising to do?

Put more money into defeating suicide? Oh no.

Put more money into understanding suicide? Oh no.

Put more money into mental health services that deal with suicide? Oh no.

We have a Government that is happier to spend the money on tax cuts for the already privileged while leaving the vulnerable to rot.

It’s time to stand up and demand more from our politicians and it is time to change this bloody totally disconnected from reality Government.

If you vote National, you are part of this problem.

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Prosecuting a beneficiary for claiming he was homeless when he wasn’t is a new level of spite in NZ

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Our love affair with hating the poor has been on display this month on The Daily Blog with example after example after example after example of how cruel our neoliberal welfare state agencies treat the most vulnerable.

But Hastings have taken that hatred to a whole new level of crazy spitefulness…

Hastings beggar convicted of fraud

A Hastings beggar was convicted of fraud yesterday after he claimed to be homeless when he was not.

Police confirmed Frank Lovich’s case was heard in the Hastings District Court yesterday.

Lovich pleaded guilty by audio visual link to 16 charges on Monday, Fairfax reported.

The offending happened on November 16 when Lovich went to the Bay City Plaza mall and held a sign begging for food, shelter and money, claiming he was homeless, Fairfax said.

According to a summary of facts, Lovich is paid $380 per week by Work and Income, and has a home in Hastings.

Lovich admitted the facts and said Work and Income did not give him enough money, Fairfax said.

He will reappear in April for sentencing.

…how damaged are we as a nation, how petty and cruel are we as a people when we willingly prosecute beggars for lying?

Christ almighty we are becoming a terribly mean country.

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