Posts by A S
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Another OIA speedily approved by Collins office, this one to embarrass head of SFO according to stuff.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10444702/OIA-request-processed-in-two-days
It is getting hard to draw a conclusion that doesn't point towards corrupt behaviour.
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Hard News: Didn't see that coming, in reply to Raymond A Francis,
I don't think looking at this through a left/right lens helps at all. Integrity should be a basic minimum required from all elected representatives.
All sides should be scrutinised, and where behaviour like that exposed thus far is found, it should be exposed, vilified and sanctioned.
It is particularly troubling when one of the worst offenders in this whole sorry saga is supposed to be charged with upholding our justice system, and the Minister in charge of our intelligence apparatus is plagued by memory problems and his management of his office is either totally incompetent or criminally sinister.
Not great traits to have in the leader of your nation either....
Tolerating this sort of carry on so your tribe stays in power is not an attractive trait, and I for one hope either criminal investigations, or a Royal Commission of Inquiry are instituted to get to the bottom of goings on in the halls of power PDQ.
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Hard News: Didn't see that coming, in reply to Raymond A Francis,
I suspect the reason that it isn't a story, is more to do with the fact that KDC's history has been widely reported in the MSM, and his dislike of the PM has been similarly well covered.
The conclusions Pam reached weren't exactly earth shattering re the MSM, particularly in light of all the @whaledump info highlighting just how much involvement slater et al had with a wide range of journos. Saying that the Journos were tainted by association isn't exactly a shocking revelation, and probably just echoes what a lot of people are saying to each other.
A good question was raised earlier, if KDC hacking was the pre-determined media slant for the launch story, who has been suggesting this particular slant to the media pack?
The degree to which our media has been, and continues to be manipulated is something I'd personally be very interested in knowing more about.
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Hard News: We can do better than this, in reply to Malcolm,
That is pretty damning in light of her role in this whole thing.
Wonder if you've just found the media their line of questioning for the day? Lots of potential questions there about integrity, judgement, and suitability for office.
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Wow. How can anyone take this seriously?
John Key says no disciplinary action will be taken against the Justice Minister because the action pre-dated the final warning he gave Ms Collins over the Oravida scandal.
How did that discussion go?
"Judith, consider yourself lucky that your lies to me, and your apparent vendetta against people who can't fight back, pre-dated the warning I gave you for terrible judgement for an entirely different thing! If this had happened after your little Oravida episode came to light, I'd have had to sack you!"
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At what point does the liability Collins poses to National staying in power exceed her value (if any)?
How many senior Nat party people are currently doing those sums, do you think?
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The latest @whaledump release is interesting. It appears that Judith Collins didn't just release the name and role of the public servant whaleoil wanted to attack, she helpfully included his cell phone and direct dial numbers too.
Personal contact info like this isn't generally found in the public domain, particularly for people whose jobs aren't very public facing.
This feels a bit seedier and more deliberately nasty than that way she attempted to pass it off to the media as her just harmlessly passing on a name to a friend...
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Re budget setting by Ministerial fiat. In theory, no. In reality, that depends rather a lot on how much pull the Minister in question has. The number of frankly idiotic things that have been funded based on Ministerial whim over the years is mind-blowing. Equally mind-blowing, but much more tragic are the rather large number of successful programmes killed on equally ill-informed whim.
I don’t know the specifics or whether the commissions funding levels match actual need, but I will say that any Minister offering up funding as no longer needed, or not seeking funding to maintain service levels, is not going to face anything like the level of scrutiny that would accompany a request for more resources.
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One of the emails in the @whaledump release (2 Sept 2013) apparently has Ede telling Slater that Ede had asked research (the Nats Parliamentary research unit?) to start compiling data that Slater was wanting.
Not entirely surprising if true, especially in light of what has come out over the last few days, but does add to the wider perception that underhanded things were being run (apparently in close collaboration with Slater) out of level 9 of the Beehive.
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Speaker: A true commitment, in reply to Brent Jackson,
The solution here does not lie in legislative change alone. It lies in the way each individual conducts themselves. And that’s exactly where this government needs to start.
So much this.
The inter-generational entrenchment of family violence is horrifying. As is the literature indicating that in over 60% of cases where there is family or domestic violence, there is also child maltreatment.
Unless something tangible and pro-active is done to change these societal patterns of behaviour, this problem isn't going away, and no amount of pointless, legislative knee-jerk reactions will fix it.
There are a whole bunch of communities and groups across the country actively trying to change attitudes and beliefs around family violence, to stamp it out in their communities. But there is very little practical support or funding for them from government (and certainly nowhere near the same level of funding that goes to dealing with the costs of violence).