Public trust in the police is at a new low. But what of the trust in our government? How much collusion is there between the police, government, spy agencies and foreign governments? However, citizens are also using the technologies of the surveillance society to hold the government and state authorities to account.
Key says that we would all be very scared if he had control over the GCSB. That’s wrong. Key is the only democratic control on our spies and he has extraordinary oversight. Every warrant the spooks need has to be approved by Key. Is he exercising that role properly, or is he just signing whatever the GCSB puts under his nose?
The Chief Ombudsmen has attacked the government’s moves to keep official information secret, calling them “highly dangerous”. The ongoing GCSB and John Banks scandals show just how important it is to be able to hold the government – at all levels – to account.
Well it’s official. The government has no interest in allowing you to know how your money is being spent.
That’s been made clear in their opposition to Darien Fenton’s port transparency bill – a bill designed simply to make publicly owned ports subject to the Official Information Act.
When they talk about “accountability” and “responsibility” and “the social contract”, remember they’re talking about it for you. Not for them or their powerful mates.
Puddleglum at The Political Scientist has written an encyclopedic and scathing critique of the Nats’ dictatorship in Canterbury.
My OIA request for the Police file of their investigation into Banks’ anonymous donations arrived today. John Key had said the law would be changed if “they could find the time.” Today David Carter found the time to say the law will be tightened before the 2013 elections.It will be very important that all the lessons from this sorry affair can be properly considered at select committee.
No Right Turn on the Nats’ continuing contempt for democracy in Canterbury.
Depress turnout among low-income voters by changing the enrolment rules – it’s an old right-wing trick. The Republicans are doing it in the US – it looks like National may try it on here. They should not succeed.
The Government has injuncted* RNZ from running a story based on a leaked Kiwirail document that shows National’s under-investment in Kiwirail will make the tracks more dangerous and less useable at a time when it is firing 200 maintenance staff. Brownlee’s excuse? “the media outlet that wanted to publish an opinion about that document was going to do so in a most irresponsible way”
KJT defends the principle of Democracy against the same old arguments. Most of the objections apply to any system which allows the public a say in Government. As again we have the party in Government telling us, “We won the election. We can do whatever we want. A dictatorship.
Threats to schools over the contents of their newsletters? The “brighter future” doesn’t like dissent.
I know I wrote on this just yesterday, but I can’t help going on about it again. Here’s the front page of The Herald online last night…
National’s record on local government is horrific: the lack of consultation as they rammed through the Supercity, the canning of ECAN, and continued suspension of democracy in Canterbury, the pushing of asset sales on an unwilling Christchurch.
And their latest attack – the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill – will do significant damage to local democracy.
While we the public distract ourselves with trivia like car crushing, and focus on other important matters like asset sales, the TPPA which is quietly unfolding in the background is actually the most important ongoing political issue. It has potentially disastrous implications for our sovereignty and our future.
National pollster and Herald columnist (I know!) David Farrar has revealed what National has up its sleeve for asset sales. No, I’m not talking about how they would put ‘mums and dads’ at the ‘front of the queue’, or any such nonsense. I’m talking about how they will attempt to de-legitimise the referendum or, alternatively, try to slam the sales through before it happens.
So, National expects 200,000 people to buy shares when it hocks off our assets. Call me simple but there’s 4.4 million of us, 3.3 million adults. Seems like nearly all of us won’t buy shares. But here’s the real rub: they’re talking about a bonus for the elite who can afford to buy shares and hold on to them. A gift from us to them. And National’s got no legal right to do it.
Peter Dunne would be really, really smart to back the Green amendment. He could still vote for the asset sales law but claim some moral high ground in saying ‘no sales until after the referendum’. Then, when the result is overwhelming opposition, he can do the commonsense shuffle and switch to opposing asset sales. It would be too late to stop the law passing but it might just save Dunne’s skin in 2014.
The Asset Sales Bill will be back in Parliament for its second reading tomorrow.
It’s a further abrogation of due procress, as it comes back 5 weeks early, curtailing proper scrutiny.
NRT on the situation in Canterbury, and the Nats’ contempt for elected democracies.
The neoliberals hate democracy. It tends to get in the way. Especially local government. It’s easier to control a single unicameral Parliament than it is to control 70-odd territorial authorities. National has attacked local government, particularly in Auckland and Canterbury but now they’re going all out with more dictatorships and forced mergers.
After hearing 150 oral submissions and receiving thousands more written ones, National’s members of the Finance and Select Committee shut down the Committee’s consideration of the evidence they had heard on the asset sales bill after just 1 hour. And why not? They had had Treasury write the Committee’s report before the submitters were even heard. Now, the legislation goes back to the House 6 weeks early to be slammed through its final stages.
Parliament is supposed to be the sovereign body in our government. So, how come the Executive has an unchallengeable power to veto any legislation it chooses? As I/S explains, the roots of the financial veto go back to when Parliament was a servant of the Crown, but its legislative justification has been repealed. Time to drop the archaic, undemocratic financial veto.
No Right Turn on another sad chapter for democracy in NZ.
You betrayed the people you pretended to represent Len.
No Right Turn on the plight of democracy in Greece.
People are waking up to National’s plan to remove the democratically-elected Christchurch City Council and replace it with its own hand-picked commissioners, who will then give a green light to Brownlee’s developer mates and the sale of council assets. You can already see the vultures circling – waiting for the chance to seize more public wealth for themselves.
When National decided to seize control of Canterbury Regional Council to remove roadblocks for unsustainable irrigation by their mates in the dairy industry, they didn’t do it overnight. They spent months creating a crisis. The same thing’s happening in Christchurch. Brownlee’s building a ‘crisis in the council’ to justify replacing the councilors with commissioners. The only question is when.
The Briefings to Incoming Ministers, which government departments produce after each election, give the public (via the media) an insight into on coming challenges in portfolios, elaborate on how election promises will be converted into real policies, and – most importantly – reveal things the government is planning that weren’t election policies. So, it’s disturbing that the Nats are censoring them.
David Farrar is calling for the Christchurch City Council to be sacked on the bizarre pretext that some of them have objected to the council CEO’s obscene pay rise. Apparently it’s a crime not to express confidence in your CEO if you’re an elected representative (Farrar seems to have missed the Collins-Matthews affair). But this is all a softening up exercise.
The high point of John Key’s popularity came about 3 weeks before the election. Then the tea tapes meant a spectacle that was meant to be a show of his power became a media storm with him at the centre. National lost 5% in those last few weeks of the campaign. Key blamed the media. Bryan Gould looks at the war he has been waging against the press ever since.
How long until National usurps Christchurch Council? Brownlee’s doing the groundwork – creating a crisis, making the councillors to blame (for not automatically agreeing to whatever Parker wants), claiming public support. Reckon he’ll wait until rebuilding is just about to start. Then council gets blamed for the delays and he gets credit for the rebuilding.
John Key has a history of choking under pressure but this time, calling on the police to raid the premises of our national broadcasters TVNZ and RNZ, and our major privately owned newspapers – he’s cracked under the pressure of the campaign and the spectre of losing it all. There’ll be no knighthood if Key becomes the first National PM to lose after just one term.
This headline speaks for itself. Tea tape: TVNZ, RNZ to be searched – “Four media outlets, including Radio New Zealand and TVNZ, are to be searched for any material they might have in their possession that relates to the tea pot tapes”. Outrageous.
In the old days soldiers marched onto the floor of parliament with fixed bayonets to replace governments and frustrate the popular will.
Now it is being done differently
