The government plans to roll out a new “cyber security action plan”. Given their record of secrecy, lies, and misuse of surveillance, I think we the people would be naive to believe this will be anything less than another escalation of the surveillance of New Zealanders.
Yesterday saw the release of the Obmudsman’s review of the operation of the OIA. I think it makes clear an unacceptable level of political interference in the process – albeit not at the level that was rampant in Dirty Politics.
No, Judith Collins was never investigated, let alone “cleared”, of the serious issues raised by Dirty Politics. After a token year off Key is happy to have her back because he has precisely as many principles as she does.
Standard Exclusive:
Te Reo Putake interviews one of the first batch of deportees from Australia under the Liberal Government’s hardline approach to Kiwis who serve jail time in the lucky country.
Yesterday the police raided the home of a 3 News journalist. This seems to be quite a trend in the Brighter Future.
About time the Police got around to becoming a “very evidence based” service. Building great relationships with academia is a sensible way to start.
The Official Information Act is now moribund and access to information beyond its scope is granted only to a chosen few and under strict conditions.
Campaigning with public money. Politicising the public service. Cabinet club is cash for access. This is a corrupt government.
The answer is at least one.
Police censorship of research is causing widespread outrage today. Well done to Dr Gilbert and The Herald for bringing it all to light.
National has passed legislation with retrospective effect under urgency to change previous legislation also passed under urgency so that the law says what it thinks the law should have said, despite the existing law being abundantly clear.
Seems Ms Adams is the latest prepared to jump under a bus to save the beloved Honest John. Self interest is strong in this one.
I/S at No Right Turn: “The House has just gone into urgency for two key (for the government) bills – the first to punish retroactively people who have already been punished, the second to steal from the poor.”
There is a suggestion that the Government may move to retrospectively take away the rights of beneficiaries and former beneficiaries to claim for benefits properly owing to them.
The Paris attacks are being used as an excuse for another ill informed debate about surveillance and encryption – which doesn’t address the communication channels that terrorists are actually using. The tools that our governments want can be used very effectively to spy on you and me though (as Key effectively acknowledges in passing).
The Herald seems to have accidentally deleted the online version of yesterday’s big story from Kirsty Johnson on how the government manipulates media perceptions. However could that have happened?
A National List MP has been snapped trying to heavy the Housing Ministry into funding a lift in her personal profile. Remember John Key’s ‘higher standards in Government’? Nick Smith’s Ministerial office apparently doesn’t care too much about about such trifles. Worse, the Housing Ministry has been caught trying to cover up for the Tories by redacting an OIA request. Here’s your Brighter Future, folks. Enjoy.
The Law? That’s not for Cabinet Members, the Law is for the lazy malcontents who don’t want to work hard.
It takes fortitude to admit you are wrong. That’s right, not weakness but, strength, courage, resilience, grit, determination, endurance, guts, and staying power. When you won’t admit you are wrong you end up having to justify wrong decisions. That takes time and energy (and money) away from what actually needs to be done for the greater good. John Key won’t admit he is wrong. Because of this he has to keep going down several paths of “wrongness”, and because he is Prime MInister, he is taking us all with him. Some people think he does admit he made mistakes. But when you examine the few instances closer (if you can find them), it looks like something else.
Looks like National is planning to take over the Environmental Protection Agency.
Key and Carter have brought NZ international shame yet again. Males in a position of power using rape as a cheap political tactic and then punishing women for speaking up. Brighter Future.
David Carter’s refusal to rule John Key’s “backing the rapists” comment out of order raises issues about his ability to properly do the job of speaker.
People have just four days left to tell the Chief Ombudsman about their experiences of making requests to government agencies under the Official Information Act if they are to inform her enquiry into government agencies’ OIA practices.
A recent supreme court ruling that a “stored sequence of bytes” constitutes property is pretty bizarre – and it seems to be being used to go after Nicky Hager.
The reaction to Westpac handing over Nicky Hager’s data to police is still playing out. Rob Hosking observes “a creeping authoritarianism from the current government”.
This is going to end well…
Westpac passing over Nicky Hager’s details was probably illegal, and may turn out to have been a very bad move…
“Throughout the TPPA negotiations Minister Groser sought to justify their obsessive secrecy with a mantra that ‘it’s always done this way’. That was parroted unquestioningly by every fellow travelling journo and politician, and others who were unwilling to challenge the Minister, despite being told that was untrue.
Groser changed his tune during the case, arguing that ‘every agreement is different’ and the TPPA is special. Why the shift?
The High Court recently found that Government and Tim Groser improperly considered Prof. Jane Kelsey’s application for information concerning the TPPA negotiations. The Nats aren’t happy. The Ombudsman isn’t happy. Tough.
I/S at No Right Turn writes on the continued suspension of democracy in Canterbury.
The High Court has upheld Jane Kelsey’s application for a declaration that the Government and Tim Groser improperly considered her application for information concerning the TPPA negotiations.
The echos of John Key’s ponytail pulling harassment of a waitress continue.
The Government has admitted that at least some of the loopy rules mentioned by Paula Bennett in support of the Loopy Rules review do not actually exist.
So, its is not that the voters are idiots, as some suggest the Left are claiming, it is that the Right deliberately lie and mislead to get a vote, on false pretenses. It is the Right who constantly treats voters as gullible idiots, And a media, strangled by shrinking budgets and reduced personnel with less and less time to research rather than regurgitate. Couple that with an increase in non-journalists hogging the space set aside for reporting and elucidating news events… what chance the voter?
Yesterday Melbourne stood up for human rights. Would we in NZ have done the same?
Chris Finlayson has criticised the New Zealand Law Society for not being aware that a change to the Health and Safety Reform Bill affecting human rights introduced after submissions had been heard was itself being changed. But all this does is reinforce the Law Society’s criticisms that such provisions should have been part of the original bill.
