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ACC minister fails in mission to change culture

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MIL OSI – Source: Green Party –

Headline: ACC minister fails in mission to change culture



The latest damning report by the Auditor General shows that the ACC Minister has failed to fulfil her mission to fix the sick culture at ACC and real change will not come till a new Government is elected, the Green Party said today.

An investigation by the Auditor General, just published online, is critical of the way ACC handles complaints from complainants, describing it as “not effective”, non-responsive, flawed and failing at times to even record complaints as complaints.

“The Green Party is just one of several groups and individuals who have been pointing out the failures in the ACC complaints system for years,” Green Party ACC spokesperson Kevin Hague said.

“It’s unacceptable that it’s taken the Auditor General to report again before ACC takes long-standing concerns about its complaints process seriously.

“ACC Minister Judith Collins came into the job over two years ago claiming she’d fix up the culture of disentitlement at ACC, but this report shows she has failed in that mission.

“The only real solution is to change the Government and get ACC back to its core principles.

“Again, the Auditor General has shown that ACC views its role to be about cutting costs and its default position is to decline claimants and saving money.

“The Green Party has previously laid out a ten point plan for rehabilitating ACC and bring it back to the core principles it was founded on.

“The latest Auditor General investigation shows how an ACC ombudsman is urgently needed to deal with ACC’s poor complaints processes, and the high number of ACC decisions that are overturned on appeal.

“ACC is suffering from multiple system failures driven by a very sick culture that the Minister has failed to change,” Mr Hague said.

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Nationwide ‘Day of Action’ throughout NZ this weekend

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MIL OSI – Source: Unite Union –

Headline: Nationwide ‘Day of Action’ throughout NZ this weekend

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NATION-WIDE ‘DAY OF ACTION’ AGAINST ISRAEL’S WAR ON GAZA & FOR FREE PALESTINE

THIS SATURDAY 16 AUGUST

Here are the FaceBook Events pages for each of the cities where activities are planned. As more details are confirmed, we will update this information.

It’s important that our voices are heard loud and clear. The whole world is outraged and demanding Israel immediately stops it’s genocidal war against Gaza, end it’s  siege, end the occupation, stop the annexations, and release the Palestinians prisoners.

WHANGAREI: 7am Water Street. https://www.facebook.com/events/831830976841477/

AUCKLAND: 2pm Aotea Square, Queen St.
https://www.facebook.com/events/495318450613242/

HAMILTON: 2pm Garden Place, Victoria St, City.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1458943344362192

GISBORNE: TBC
https://www.facebook.com/events/1456409514618788

HAWKES BAY: 12noon Hastings Town Clock

PALMERSTON NORTH: 2pm Fitzherbert & Hardie

WANGANUI: TBC

WELLINGTON: 12pm Cuba Street, (Bucket Fountain), City.
https://www.facebook.com/events/701593493223679

CHRISTCHURCH: 2.30pm Cnr Deans Ave & Riccarton Rd.
https://www.facebook.com/events/273837992801892/

DUNEDIN: 11am Otago Museum http://on.fb.me/Vasglb

Supported by:

Palestine Human Rights Campaign – http://palestine.org.nz/phrc/index.php

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Nominations Now Open For 2014 Roger Award

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MIL OSI – Source: Unite Union –

Headline: Nominations Now Open For 2014 Roger Award

The Roger Award is for The Worst Transnational Corporation

Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand in 2014

Here is the link to the 2014 Roger Award online nomination form (the first time we’ve ever had an online one):

http://canterbury.cyberplace.co.nz/community/CAFCA/roger-award-2014-form.html

You can also download the hard copy nomination form from there.

Criteria:

The criteria for judging are by assessing the transnational (a corporation which is 25% or more foreign-owned*) that has the most negative impact in each or all of the following categories:

  • Economic Dominance – Monopoly, profiteering, tax dodging, cultural imperialism
  • People – Unemployment, impact on tangata whenua, impact on women, impact on children, abuse of workers/conditions, health and safety of workers and the public
  • Environment – Environmental damage, abuse of animals
  • Political interference – Interference in democratic processes, running an ideological crusade

Judging:

The judges for 2014 are: David Small, a lawyer and Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Canterbury; Dean Parker, Auckland writer and former Writers’ Guild delegate to the CTU; Dennis Maga, union activist from the May First Movement Philippines, organiser of FIRST Union and founder of Migrante and UNEMIG; Paul Maunder, cultural worker, curator of Blackball Museum of Working Class History and coordinator of Unions West Coast; and Sue Bradford, community activist, lecturer in social practice at Unitec and former Green MP.

They will be given a shortlist of finalists.

The winner(s) will be announced at a Christchurch event on May 1, 2015.

Nominations:

You can nominate the same transnational as last year as long as the nomination is about their misdeeds in 2014. Please send as much detail as you can (hard copy or e-mailed as Word attachments), including newspaper clippings and reports, but you do not have to do all the research. Just quote sources if you can.

Accomplice Award:

You may also nominate an organisation (not an individual) which has been the worst Accomplice in 2014 in aiding and abetting transnational corporations in New Zealand to behave as described in the criteria. The Accomplice’s award is in addition to the Worst Transnational Corporation award and will not necessarily be awarded every year. You may nominate for either or both awards.

Nominations close on October 31, 2014. You can send in your nomination via the online form, or by snail mail to

The Roger Award, Box 2258, Christchurch 8140

Or by e-mail to cafca

*Please note that Fonterra is not eligible.

Murray Horton
On behalf of the Roger Award organisers CAFCA & GATT Watchdog

CAFCA
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa
Box 2258, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand
cafca
www.cafca.org.nz
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/cafcafb
Watchblog: http://tinyurl.com/watchblog
twitter:@NZN4S

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Afghanistan: No justice for thousands of civilians killed in US/NATO operations

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MIL OSI – Source: Amnesty International NZ –

Headline: Afghanistan: No justice for thousands of civilians killed in US/NATO operations

The families of thousands of Afghan civilians killed by US/NATO forces in Afghanistan have been left without justice, Amnesty International said in a new report released today. Focusing primarily on air strikes and night raids carried out by US forces, including Special Operations Forces, Left in the Dark finds that even apparent war crimes have gone uninvestigated and unpunished.

“Thousands of Afghans have been killed or injured by US forces since the invasion, but the victims and their families have little chance of redress. The US military justice system almost always fails to hold its soldiers accountable for unlawful killings and other abuses,” said Richard Bennett, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific Director.

“None of the cases that we looked into – involving more than 140 civilian deaths – were prosecuted by the US military. Evidence of possible war crimes and unlawful killings has seemingly been ignored.”

The report documents in detail the failures of accountability for US military operations in Afghanistan. It calls on the Afghan government to ensure that accountability for unlawful civilian killings is guaranteed in any future bilateral security agreements signed with NATO and the United States.

Amnesty International conducted detailed investigations of 10 incidents that took place between 2009 and 2013, in which civilians were killed by US military operations. At least 140 civilians were killed in the incidents that Amnesty International investigated, including pregnant women and at least 50 children. The organization interviewed some 125 witnesses, victims and family members, including many who had never given testimony to anyone before.

Two of the case studies — involving a Special Operations Forces raid on a house in Paktia province in 2010, and enforced disappearances, torture, and killings in Nerkh and Maidan Shahr districts, Wardak province, in November 2012 to February 2013 — involve abundant and compelling evidence of war crimes. No one has been criminally prosecuted for either of the incidents.

Qandi Agha, a former detainee held by US Special Forces in Nerkh in late 2012, spoke of the daily torture sessions he endured. “Four people beat me with cables. They tied my legs together and beat the soles of my feet with a wooden stick. They punched me in the face and kicked me. They hit my head on the floor.” He also said he was dunked in a barrel of water and given electrical shocks.

Agha said that both US and Afghan forces participated in the torture sessions. He also said that four of the eight prisoners held with him were killed while he was in US custody, including one person, Sayed Muhammed, whose killing he witnessed.

Formal criminal investigations into the killing of civilians in Afghanistan are extremely rare. Amnesty International is aware of only six cases since 2009 in which US military personnel have faced trials.

Under international humanitarian law (the laws of war), not every civilian death occurring in armed conflict implies a legal breach. Yet if civilians appear to have been killed deliberately or indiscriminately, or as part of a disproportionate attack, the incident requires a prompt, thorough and impartial inquiry. If that inquiry shows that the laws of war were violated, a prosecution should be initiated.

Of the scores of witnesses, victims and family members Amnesty International spoke to when researching this report, only two people said that they had been interviewed by US military investigators. In many of the cases covered in the report, US military or NATO spokespeople would announce that an investigation was being carried out, but would not release any further information about the progress of the investigation or its findings – leaving victims and family members in the dark.

“We urge the US military to immediately investigate all the cases documented in our report, and all other cases where civilians have been killed. The victims and their family members deserve justice,” said Richard Bennett.

The main obstacle to justice for Afghan victims and their family members is the deeply flawed US military justice system.

Essentially a form of self-policing, the military justice system is “commander-driven” and, to a large extent, relies on soldiers’ own accounts of their actions in assessing the legality of a given operation. Lacking independent prosecutorial authorities, it expects soldiers and commanders to report potential human rights violations themselves. The conflict of interest is clear.

In the rare instances when a case actually reaches the prosecution stage, there are serious concerns about the lack of independence of US military courts. It is extremely rare that Afghans themselves are invited to testify in these cases.

“There is an urgent need to reform the US military justice system. The US should learn from other countries, many of which have made huge strides in recent years in civilianizing their military justice systems,” said Richard Bennett.

The report also documents the lack of transparency on investigations and prosecutions of unlawful killings of civilians in Afghanistan. The US military withholds overall data on accountability for civilian casualties, and rarely provides information on individual cases. The US government’s freedom of information system, meant to ensure transparency when government bodies fail to provide information, does not function effectively when civilian casualties are at issue.

Amnesty International also urges the Afghan government to immediately establish its own mechanism to investigate abuses by the Afghan National Security forces, who will assume full combat responsibility by the end of 2014.

 

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Amnesty International Christchurch celebrates release of ‘adopted’ prisoner

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MIL OSI – Source: Amnesty International NZ –

Headline: Amnesty International Christchurch celebrates release of ‘adopted’ prisoner

Christchurch Amnesty International members are celebrating the news that Chinese dissident, Gao Zhisheng, has been released from prison.

Mr Gao, a prominent human rights lawyer, was sentenced to three years in prison in 2011 for ‘violating probation rule’ on earlier charges of ‘inciting subversion’.  Christchurch Amnesty International group adopted the case of Mr Gao in 2012 and have been campaigning for his release ever since, including holding a birthday party for him at Café 8 on New Regent Street earlier in the year.

“We’re thrilled with the news that Gao is finally out” says group spokesperson Stefan Fairweather.

“Mr Gao was imprisoned on trumped up charges. He has been into bat for religious minorities, Falun Gong and has defended other human rights activists in China and for simply doing his job, he was put in prison. This is wrong and shouldn’t be tolerated”.

Amnesty International, along with US, European Union and the United Nations had repeatedly called on the Chinese authorities to release him.

 

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Cambodia: Khmer Rouge trial verdict a crucial step towards justice

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MIL OSI – Source: Amnesty International NZ –

Headline: Cambodia: Khmer Rouge trial verdict a crucial step towards justice

The decision convicting two of Cambodia’s most senior former Khmer Rouge officials for crimes against humanity at the country’s UN-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) is an important step towards justice, Amnesty International said.

Amnesty International’s Deputy Asia-Pacific Director Rupert Abbott said:

“This long-awaited ruling is an important step towards justice for the victims of the Khmer Rouge period and highlights the importance of addressing impunity.”

“But the earlier refusal of senior Cambodian government officials to give evidence, as well as allegations of political interference in other ECCC cases, is troubling and raises concerns around the fairness of the proceedings and respect for victims’ right to hear the full truth regarding the alleged crimes.”

“Fair and effective trials are crucial if the ECCC is to leave a lasting legacy which strengthens Cambodia’s very fragile judicial system and contributes towards ending the deep culture of impunity.

“The ECCC must complete all of its cases in a timely and fair manner without political interference. This will require the full support of the Cambodian government and the international community.”

“Amnesty International welcomes the Chamber’s decision to endorse 11 reparation projects for victims and calls for them to be fully implemented. However, much more must also be done by the government of Cambodia towards repairing the harm suffered by victims.”

Background

The ECCC, known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, today delivered the verdict in Case 002/01, sentencing Nuon Chea, 88, and Khieu Samphan, 83, to life imprisonment.

Nuon Chea, the former second in command of the Khmer Rouge regime, and Khieu Samphan, the regime’s former Head of State, faced a number of charges, including the forced movement of the population from Phnom Penh and elsewhere, and the execution of soldiers of the Khmer Republic – the regime topped by the Khmer Rouge. 

Almost 4,000 victims have been able to participate as Civil Parties in case 002/01, with rights as full parties to the case, including legal representation andopportunities to request investigative acts and call and question witnesses. Before the ECCC, no other international criminal tribunal trying crimes underinternational law had given victims a formal status during the proceedings.

Recognizing that Nuon Chea and and Khieu Samphan are indigent, the Chamber decided not to order the two men to provide reparation to the victims. Instead, the Chamber endorsed 11 reparation projects which have secured external funding. Two other projects were not endorsed because of insufficient information and lack of external funding.

Last week, the ECCC held an initial hearing in Case 002/02, the second case against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, where a wider set of allegations including genocide will be considered.

Investigations into two further cases involving a total of four suspects should also be under way, but have suffered from apparent political interference and obstruction that have delayed justice and denied rights to suspects and victims alike.

 

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Mounting evidence of deliberate attacks on Gaza health workers by Israeli army

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MIL OSI – Source: Amnesty International NZ –

Headline: Mounting evidence of deliberate attacks on Gaza health workers by Israeli army

An immediate investigation is needed into mounting evidence that the Israel Defense Forces launched apparently deliberate attacks against hospitals and health professionals in Gaza, which have left six medics dead, said Amnesty International as it released disturbing testimonies from doctors, nurses, and ambulance personnel working in the area.

“The harrowing descriptions by ambulance drivers and other medics of the utterly impossible situation in which they have to work, with bombs and bullets killing or injuring their colleagues as they try to save lives, paint a grim reality of life in Gaza,” said Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.

“Even more alarming is the mounting evidence that the Israeli army has targeted health facilities or professionals. Such attacks are absolutely prohibited by international law and would amount to war crimes. They only add to the already compelling argument that the situation should be referred to the International Criminal Court.”

Hospitals, doctors and ambulance staff, including those trying to evacuate people injured in Israeli attacks, have come under increased fire since 17 July.

Some medical teams have even been prevented from reaching critical areas altogether, leaving hundreds of injured civilians without access to life-saving help and entire families without assistance in removing the bodies of their loved ones.

Jaber Khalil Abu Rumileh, who supervises ambulance services in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, told Amnesty International of a shelling attack on the medical facility on 21 July that lasted for half an hour.

“It was 3pm and I was working in the emergency unit. I heard bombing that shook the hospital. It was a shelling that had hit the fourth floor, the pregnancy and caesarean unit. Then there were a few more hits. People were terrified, patients ran out, doctors could not enter to help the injured and remove the dead. Then the third floor was hit and four people were killed. I saw one women come running with the child she just gave birth to. Some women gave birth during the shelling.”

Mohammad Abu Jumiza is partially deaf after suffering head injuries during an attack that took place while he was transferring injured people in his ambulance in Khan Younis on 24 July.

“We were on our way back to Nasser hospital, driving with the lights and sirens on as always. The ambulance was clearly marked as such. The doctor, nurse and I were all wearing medical uniforms. When we reached the Islamic University I heard an explosion right next to us and the front and back windows of the car fell out. As I was turning another missile hit next to us, and then a third one. When the fourth missile hit, I lost control and we crashed, so we ran out of the car and found shelter in a building. Then there were two more missiles fired and some people were injured.”

Dr Bashar Murad, director of Palestinian Red Crescent Society’s (PRCS) emergency and ambulance unit, said that since the conflict started at least two PRCS ambulance workers had been killed, at least 35 had been injured and 17 health vehicles had been left out of service after attacks by the Israeli army.

“Our ambulances are often targeted although they are clearly marked and display all signs that they are ambulances. The army should be able to distinguish from the air that what they targeting are ambulances,” he said.

Ambulance worker Mohammad Al-Abadlah was killed on 25 July. He was in Qarara to help an injured person when he was shot in the hip and chest with gunfire and bled to death. Mohammad was travelling in a visibly marked ambulance and was wearing his medical uniform. Colleagues who approached him to help him were also shot at but were not injured.

A’ed Mustafa Bur’i, another ambulance worker, was burned to death on 25 July in Beit Hanoon after a shell hit the clearly marked vehicle he was travelling in.

Hospitals across the Gaza Strip are also suffering from fuel and power shortages, inadequate water supply, and shortages of essential drugs and medical equipment. Such shortages, already prevalent due to Israel’s seven-year blockade, have been made much worse during the current hostilities. 

 

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Labour’s regional development fund to support Palmerston North

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MIL OSI – Source: Labour Party –

Headline: Labour’s regional development fund to support Palmerston North

Labour will consider a proposal to develop an inland port at Palmerston North, Labour Leader David Cunliffe says.

“The Palmerston North community has developed plans for an inland port which will bring jobs and economic growth to a region which has been badly neglected by this Government,” says David Cunliffe who has been meeting with people in the Manawatu today.

“We will examine the merits of this proposal for support under our Regional Development Fund. This $200 million fund targets co-investment in infrastructure and industry projects which create economic step-changes for our regions.

“Unemployment in Manawatu/Whanganui has almost doubled under this National Government. But a Labour Government will back the Manawatu. There is a real buzz in Palmerston North about the potential to take this region forward.”

Labour’s MP for Palmerston North Iain Lees-Galloway says an inland port could be great news for the city.

“This is the kind of hope Palmerston North needs after being neglected by the National Government for the past six years. We will also be looking at food innovation projects. The Manawatu could be a leading high-value food incubator with backing from Government.”

The Labour Leader and Iain Lees-Galloway today visited Massey University and Food HQ.

David Cunliffe says Labour’s manufacturing upgrade and research and development tax credits would drive the regional growth Manawatu so desperately needs.

“We need a Government committed to backing regional centres to achieve their potential,” he says.

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Green Party celebrates MOU win on contaminated sites

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MIL OSI – Source: Green Party –

Headline: Green Party celebrates MOU win on contaminated sites



New Zealanders will be pleased to see progress on the identification and cleaning up of toxic sites. The Green Party is proud of the role we have played in working with the Government to make this happen.

The Green Party is celebrating the announcement of a national register of contaminated sites today, and $2.5 million to start cleaning two sites up.

The Green Party and the National Party agreed to include toxic site management work in their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2011. Today the Government has announced funding for two sites to be cleaned up, and a prioritised list of ten sites with issues.

“This national register is a big step forward, and it’s great that the Government is using robust criteria following input from the Green Party,” said Green Party toxics spokesperson Catherine Delahunty.

“New Zealanders will be pleased to see progress on the identification and cleaning up of toxic sites. The Green Party is proud of the role we have played in working with the Government to make this happen.

“It’s as a result of the MoU that there is a National Register of contaminated sites. New Zealanders love their country and have a right to know where contaminated sites are.

“The involvement of local communities in these clean-up projects is vital.

“We’re pleased that the national register has been established. We’re also working with the Government and Local Government New Zealand on ensuring greater transparency and consistency for the regional registers,” said Ms Delahunty.

“This an example of the Green Party’s proven leadership, working with others where there is common ground to achieve good green change,” said Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman.

The Tui Mine remediation project – which was MoU – recently won the Arthur Mead Award, presented by the Auckland branch of the Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand.

“The recent award for the Tui Mine clean-up’s shows that toxic site clean-ups can be done, and can be done well,” said Ms Delahunty.

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Oxfam gears up its aid effort to help people affected by fighting in Iraq

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MIL OSI – Source: Oxfam NZ –

Headline: Oxfam gears up its aid effort to help people affected by fighting in Iraq

Over 1.2 million people have been displaced as a result of fighting in Central and Northern Iraq and an estimated 1.5 million people are now in need of humanitarian assistance. Many have fled their homes and are in desperate need of food, shelter, medicine, water and sanitation.

Oxfam’s Iraq Country Representative Wael Ibrahim said : “The situation is deteriorating day by day and our priority is to get to as many people as quickly as possible, families have been completely traumatised by the situation and are constantly on the move looking for safety. Our priority is to be ready to assist them with crucial aid and try to be ahead of the situation by ensuring we are in the right place ready to deliver safe water and sanitation.”

Oxfam is on the ground and planning to work with partners to reach around 50,000 people over the next 3 months with safe water and sanitation.
 

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My two worst fears for the Progressive Left in the 2014 election

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_January_1982_Socialist_Standard_

I have two fears for the Progressive Left in the 2014 election.

Despite what the mainstream media have claimed for 3 years, I think the Progressive Left will be the majority come September 21st. I think we will win because the mechanics of MMP are too great for National to overcome this time but I have two fears.

 

1 – The First 100 Days

Unfortunately much of the political establishment of the Left don’t seem to think we are going to win and so focus is on elbowing each other for the biggest slice of an ever diminishing pie. One of my fears is that the Progressive Left will win by accident and that no one will know what the hell we are supposed to do once we have finally won power. If we get a Labour-Green-Internet MANA majority  that will be the most progressive Government ever created in NZs political history and as such, there is an obligation on those leaders to maximise a historic first with some radical ideas and a genuine focus on the poor.

The Greens have one of the best and most comprehensive plans for greening the economy, Internet MANA have a handful of radical and clever ideas and Labour will need the inter Party relationship  skills to manage the whole thing. In Matt McCarten, Labour have someone who can balance that, but the additional risk to manage will be the onslaught caused by a wounded mainstream media who will be wanting vengeance for Key losing and the Auckland Business Mafia who will immediately try to stall the economy and disrupt any move that seeks to uncouple NZ to the 30 year experiment in neoliberalism.

Helen Clark faced it during her winter of discontent when the business community purposely spooked the stock market, she relented and reversed much of her social policy to keep them happy, how will Labour manage when almost 90% of all media in NZ is as feral right as whaleoil?

I want to try and nominate which journalist or pundit will be the first on election night to claim Key has been cheated and the result not legitimate, but there are so many who will try that spin I can’t possibly work out who will be first.

I fear that all the attention is on everything up to September 20th and there are very few minds on the Progressive side trying to work out what the first 100 days will actually look like.

 

2 – The ABCs to form own splinter

The moralistic and hyper aggressive stance that many of the ABCs have taken against Internet MANA is well beyond the level required from focus groups results that show Labour Party voters are nervous about Kim Dotcom. They have purposely sought a moral high ground that just isn’t there and I am deeply suspicious that they wouldn’t collectively try forming some type of splinter group and walk out of Labour if Internet MANA are required to provide supply and confidence. A ‘real Labour’ if you will, wedded to the provinces and as socially liberal as a book burning. They would sit on the cross benches and negotiate their own demands and reductions of progressive policy.

As one ABC recently confided to me, “We aren’t looking at the next 3 years, we are looking at the next 30 years”, with aspirations like that, my blood runs cold.

 

I think it is highly unlikely that Key will manage to form a majority, but progressive activists need to understand that winning on September 20th is only the beginning.

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Emergency staff at breaking point

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MIL OSI – Source: Labour Party –

Headline: Emergency staff at breaking point

The Southern DHB is so cash-strapped it is failing to fill nursing rosters, Labour’s Associate Health spokesperson David Clark says. 

“Every day emergency department nurses arrive at work knowing they are likely to be carrying more than their recommended workload. 

“Nurses have a duty of care and are loyal to the core, so they have put up with additional work and growing stress every day for the last few years. However patient and nurse safety is compromised when professionally recommended staffing ratios are not maintained. 

“That’s not helped by the increasing numbers of people turning up at EDs because they can’t afford to go to their own doctor.

“Australasian studies suggest emergency departments maintain a minimum 1:3 nurse to patient ratio of immediately available staff.  When a patient is critical more nurses are required. Three nurses are required for each critical patient, leaving fewer available for subsequent patients.

“A stretch ratio of 1:4 is typically operated during shifts at the emergency department in Dunedin, with a 1:5 ratio common at night. 

“But it gets worse. A ratio of 1:10 is not unheard of on night shift.  On Sunday just past, the nurse to patient ratio dropped to 1:8 for close on an hour.  In such situations, one or two critical patients can tie up much of the available staffing resource, leaving the care of subsequent ED arrivals compromised.

“A first-world health system should not put nurses in situations that blatantly breach professional standards. Their goodwill cannot be abused forever, and patient safety is at stake.

“It is clear that National’s underfunding of health is putting patient lives at risk.  Labour’s investment in health will ease the pressure on EDs by providing free GP visits to thousands more Kiwis,” David Clark said.

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US ‘CERTIFICATION’: THE ULTIMATE OUTRAGE AGAINST DEMOCRACY

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certification-logo2

The US is driving the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). The demands it makes on behalf of its corporations have dominated the negotiations. US officials now chair many of the more controversial negotiating groups. The US has even bankrolled recent ministers’ and officials’ meetings in other countries.

Some people will know that the US House of Representatives has constitutional authority over trade agreements. That means US politicians can pick apart any deal, cherry-picking what they want, rejecting what they don’t, and demanding the negotiators go back for more.

There is an alternative known as Fast Track or Trade Promotion Authority. If Congress grants the President Fast Track, Congress has to accept or reject the TPPA as a whole – but to get Fast Track, Obama would need to agree to a raft of conditions. Even with Fast Track, members of Congress could still upset the final vote once it hits the floor of the House. Two weeks ago the 23 Republican members of the crucial Ways and means committee of the House of Representatives said they would not let the TPPA go to a vote unless President has obtained Fast Track authority from them first.

What very few people know is that the US has another, extraordinary weapon that could blow the TPPA out of the water. It goes by the benign name of ‘certification’. Negotiators have been aware that it is lurking in the background. But few of them know how it operates, or how to neutralise its effects.

A new website TPPnocertification.org, launched today, exposes how ‘certification’ has been used by the US in recent years. It is a terrifying story.

Assume the twelve governments negotiating the TPPA reach what they believe is a final deal, after the US has turned the screws as far as it can. Then the Congress will turn the screws even tighter with the legislation to implement the TPPA, with or without Fast Track.

Certification cuts in after that. Congress will include, in either the Fast Track authorisation or the implementing legislation, a legal obligation on the President that says he cannot bring the TPPA into force with another party to the TPPA until that country satisfies what the US says are its obligations.

The draft Fast Track legislation that was introduced to Congress several months ago already contains a provision that says:

CONSULTATIONS PRIOR TO ENTRY INTO FORCE – Prior to exchanging notes providing for the entry into force of a trade agreement, the United States Trade Representative shall consult closely and on a timely basis with Members of Congress and committees as specified in paragraph (1), and keep them fully apprised of the measures a trading partner has taken to comply with those provisions of the agreement that are to take effect on the date that the agreement enters into force.

The new website has identified what each of the 11 non-US countries in the negotiation might expect the US Congress to demand, based on letters they have issued and reports prepared by the USTR on the barriers it wants countries to remove.

For New Zealand that would be our copyright and patent laws, the foreign investment vetting regime, the procedures by which Pharmac operates, and Fonterra’s ‘anti-competitive monopoly’.

The formal certification process works like this. United States officials transmit the list of the changes they require to the other country’s domestic laws and regulations. Then they monitor compliance and maintain pressure on the other country’s government until the US is satisfied.

How this has played out in practice is a total outrage against sovereignty and the democratic process. US officials have become directly involved in drafting another country’s relevant laws and regulations to ensure they satisfy US demands. This includes reviewing, amending and approving proposed laws before they are presented to the other country’s legislature. The USTR even demanded that Guatemala implement new pharmaceutical laws that were not in the formal text, and which the government had strenuously resisted during the negotiations.

Most detail is known about the US Peru FTA, because the communications within the Office of the USTR were released under the US Freedom of Information Act. One internal email said: ‘We have to redraft the regs and the law – Peru needs to accept them without changes’. Another said, ‘if the Peruvians accept our language as we [USTR] propose it we still have the possibility of wrapping everything up the week of November 10. If the Peruvians try to negotiate then all bets are off’.

They were talking about a controversial legislative decree that Peru adopted to comply with USTR’s interpretations of the FTA’s requirements. That Forestry and Wildlife Law (LD 1090) had tragic consequences. On 5 June 2009 Peruvian security forces attacked several thousand indigenous Awajun and Wambis protestors, including many women and children; more than 30 people were killed in what became known as the Bagua massacre. They were blocking the highway to support demands for revoking the decrees that implemented the laws. Cables published by Wikileaks show warnings from the US four days before the massacre that Peru’s government was being too lenient and giving into indigenous pressures would have ‘implications’ for the FTA.

Comparable communications that would show the interference of the US in drafting New Zealand laws or regulations might never be released under New Zealand’s Official Information Act, because they involve information entrusted to the government in confidence from another government. In other words New Zealanders, including Members of Parliament, might never know the US was involved in writing our laws and demanding the right to sign them off even before Parliament gets to see them.

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Dragon breath and the age of consequences

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One use of the f-word has flown under the radar in the last few weeks of frantic electioneering, but it’s arguably the most important. We ignore it at our peril.

At the end of last month, ice and climate scientist Dr Jason Box tweeted:

If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we’re f’d.

He was blogging about the finding by a Swedish research team on an icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean that bubbles of methane were rising to the sea surface, causing local atmospheric methane levels to soar. Dragon breath blowing around the Arctic. Asked to expand a little by Motherboard senior editor Brian Merchant, he was less coy than on Twitter:

“Even if a small fraction of the Arctic carbon were released to the atmosphere, we’re fucked,” he told me. What alarmed him was that ”the methane bubbles were reaching the surface. That was something new in my survey of methane bubbles,” he said.
“We’re on a trajectory to an unmanageable heating scenario, and we need to get off it,” he said. “We’re fucked at a certain point, right? It just becomes unmanageable. The climate dragon is being poked, and eventually the dragon becomes pissed off enough to trash the place.”

You might think Dr Box is an outlier, a scaremonger amongst climate scientists. He isn’t. Take the time (only half a hour) to view this video — Arctic Emergency: Scientists Speak — by Max Wilbert. A collection of senior Arctic scientists point to the warming that’s already speeding ahead unchecked in the Arctic, and to the risks of sudden massive methane release from the vast stores in permafrost on land and under the shallow — and rapidly warming — seas over the East Siberian Shelf. There’s as much carbon locked into the frozen land and seabed as in all the earth’s land vegetation.

The big danger is that if warming proceeds — and remember, the Arctic is already warming far faster than the mid latitudes and tropics — the permafrost and seabed methane will melt and make attempts to control atmospheric greenhouse gas levels far more difficult. It’s conceivable that the methane release could be large enough to swamp any emissions cuts we manage. The anthropocene would be over before it started, the reins of planetary control ripped from our hands by a fast feedback we only saw coming when it was too late to do anything about it. As Dr Box puts it:

The trajectory we’re on is to awaken a runaway climate heating that will ravage global agricultural systems leading to mass famine, conflict. Sea level rise will be a small problem by comparison.

While our politicians gurn for the cameras, while the ACT Party dines out on its climate denial, the National Party pays lip service to emissions cuts while presiding over steep rises, and Winston Peters can’t even be bothered to have a policy, the planet gets on with the business of warming fast. The hubris of politicians who think they are better judges of climate risk than earth scientists is being found out on the grandest possible scale.

Meanwhile, Dr Box believes that there are things we can all do to reduce the risk of a methane catastrophe. We have to cut emissions, hard and fast:

This should start with limiting the burning of fossil fuels from conventional sources; chiefly coal, followed by tar sands [block the pipeline]; reduce fossil fuel use elsewhere for example in liquid transportation fuels; engage in a massive reforestation program to have side benefits of sustainable timber, reduced desertification, animal habitat, aquaculture; and redirect fossil fuel subsidies to renewable energy subsidies.

The news from the north means that cosy assumptions that we have decades to act are dangerously misguided. We can’t afford to wait for the great juggernaut of international cooperation to creak into action.

This is an all hands on deck moment, says Dr Box.

We’re in the age of consequences.

Would somebody please tell our politicians?

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Lochinver, Shanghai Pengxin and a Chinese Billionaire

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There has been a lot of rhetoric around the application by Shanghai Penxin to gain approval for the purchase of Lochinver Station between Napier and Taupo which comprises around 13,800 hectares.  That is almost double the area that made up the 16 Crafar Farms that was approved by National Ministers Williamson and Coleman in 2012.

The significant issue about this latest application is not so much the generic debate about foreign ownership, but rather a focus on who is applying to purchase and why.

Shanghai Pengxin is essentially the operating vehicle of Jiang Zhaobai, a Chinese billionaire.  As recently as May 2013 he is quoted as saying he has no immediate plans for further farm purchases.  The tender process for Lochinver Station opened in December 2013.

Shanghai Pengxin also owns 74% of Synlait Farm companies which own around 13 farm properties in the South Island.  The former National Government Minister of Finance, Ruth Richardson, was a director of Synlait Farms and is now a director of Synlait Milk.  And interestingly Terry Lee who is a common player across all these groups was a founding director of Oravida, which was originally named Kiwi Dairy.

The NZ Herald editorial of 5 August tried to counter opposition on the basis that “Fonterra has been buying farms [in China] as part of an ambitious plan to build hubs that produce up to 1 billion litres of high-quality milk every year by 2020.”   In fact, that is not the case at all.  Fonterra is entering joint ventures and leases of land but cannot ever own or buy land in the sense that they obtain title, as Shanghai Pengxin has done here.  The State in China always retains ownership – similar to the high country lease land in the South Island that Shania Twain and Mutt Lange obtained approval to purchase with significant conservation covenants.

The issue about this acquisition and why it differs from the ones that Steven Joyce throws in the mix is that Shanghai Pengxin has acquired the farms, it is looking to process the farm produce and to sell it on the Chinese market predominantly through their own super markets.  And they do it using the NZ Pure brand.  The Shanghai Pengxin stable of companies include companies conveniently named Pure 100 Farm Ltd (the tenderer for Lochinver Station), NZ Standard Farm Ltd, Milk NZ Holding Ltd, Milk NZ Corporation Ltd, Milk NZ Dairy Ltd, Milk NZ Management Ltd and Nature Pure Ltd.

What is also interesting is that Gary Romano who was formerly with Fonterra’s NZ Milk Products and resigned at the time of the botched botulism scare is now part of Shanghai Pengxin’s operation as Chief Executive of NZ Milk Management and as a director of Synlait Farms.  It seems according the NBR that he has spent some time on holiday since resigning from Fonterra in August 2013 until he took up his new position with Shanghai Pengxin in March 2014.

The reality is that Shanghai Pengxin is a competitor of Fonterra in the Chinese market.  Shanghai Pengxin does not supply Fonterra or any other New Zealand milk processor.  But it uses our pure branding to push its product.

And that has always been the intention and purpose of Shanghai Pengxin and its associated companies. They have continued to lobby the Government to allow them to purchase processing plants outright, most recently in discussions with John Key on his visit to China earlier this year.  It is difficult to see how any Minister could have exercised a discretion that found such an operation is in the national interest.    And yet that is what Williamson and Coleman did in approving the Crafar farm purchase.

The criteria and process under the Overseas Investment Act is in dire need of review.  The fact that there is no ability to identify how much farmland is in foreign ownership almost defeats the purpose of an approval regime.  John Key’s rough guesses are not good enough.

And we need to identify and deal with the cumulative effects of certain foreign investment.  If the Lochinver sale is approved Shanghai Pengxin will have 21,000 hectares of farms in the North Island and a 74% shareholding in 13 farms comprising 4,500 hectares in the South Island.  And when the OIO gave but yet another approval in February this year to Shanghai Pengxin to take over Synlait Farms, there was barely a murmur.  And yet as part of the deal the Government signed over 7 hectares of the Rakaia riverbed and 5 hectares of Conservation stewardship land.  The Government has been an accomplice in easing the way for a foreign investor to produce milk to export to China to sell on the same market as Fonterra.  There is little or no benefit to the country but it is easy to see detriment.  There is an urgent need for greater transparency, like notification of applications and much more in-depth analysis than the superficial accusations of xenophobia aimed at deflecting attention from the detrimental effects easy approvals can have.



Authorized by Louisa Wall MP, Parliament Buildings, Wellington

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