Some questions
May 22nd, 2012 at 9:35 pm by David FarrarAs widely predicted Shane Jones has said he made the decision he did, to stop Liu being executed in China. 3 News reports:
As a minister, Mr Jones signed off on Yong Ming Yan’s application to become a New Zealand citizen, despite officials telling him not to.
“I was told the execution of this man…that he would be executed…which is the reason the officials gave for him not wanting to go back to China.”
Mr Jones said declining it would have been like signing a death warrant.
Mr Jones says he was told that Mr Yan would be “jailed, executed and his organs harvested” if he was sent back to China.
Some questions on this claim:
- Who was this official who told him this? It wasn’t by some chance Daniel Phillips was it, the brother of Shane Te Pou – the Labour fundraiser who got paid $5,000 to help get Liu citizenship
- Does having citizenship in any way impact whether or not one can be extradited to China over the fraud charges laid against him?
- If one truly believes you face execution and persecution in your home country, don’t you apply for asylum not citizenship?
- But if one applied for asylum, wouldn’t that actually require some substantiation of the claims that he was Falun Gong and fearing for his life, with adjudication by an independent tribunal, rather than Ministerial discretion as with citizenship?
- Has Jones or Liu or anyone at all ever produced a shred of evidence that he actually faced anything in China except a fraud trial?
Some other questions:
- Does anyone seriously think Liu would have been granted citizenship if he had not donated to various Labour MPs, who advocated so strongly on his behalf?
- Is anyone else curious about why Liu paid Labour Party fundraiser Shane Te Pou $5,000 to fill in a citizenship form for him? That’s a lot of money for filling in a form.
- Is the more likely explanation that he paid Te Pou the $5,000, so Te Pou could use his political influence to get him citizenship.
- Is it a coincidence that Te Pou immediately introduced him to then Internal Affairs Minister Rick Barker
- Is it also a coincidence that a donation to Dover Samuels election campaign was made from an unknown Chinese entity using the address of Daniel Philips, who is Shane Te Pou’s brother and worked for Shane Jones
Mr Jones says he would be happy for any investigation to take place into his role in this matter.
Excellent. I repeat the call for a full independent inquiry into the Liu affair. This should be an inquiry that has the ability to compel testimony from all parties involved, and obtain all relevant documents.
Related posts:
- DIA official told “to stop asking questions” about Liu
- Will Liu/Yan keep his citizenship
- The Bill Liu trial
- The Liu trial
May 22nd, 2012 at 9:52 pm
There is no need for an inquiry. Just as Philip Field was only guilty of helping people, Shane Jones is obviously only guilty of providing asylum to a poor refugee. Move along… nothing to see!
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 9:55 pm
He welcomes it because Shearer won’t suggest it and John Key won’t be able to do it convincingly without Shearer’s say so.
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 9:56 pm
Ummm. Haven’t reports claimed that he went back to China in the meantime. So much for being in fear of his life there…
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 10:00 pm
What’s more even if China applied for an extradition, we wouldn’t give it to them _unless_ they waived the death penalty. That applies to non-citizens as well as citizens.
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 10:00 pm
TV3 won’t support any probe about Jones. Not after Jones traded them an interview opportunity in return for a easy ride in the interview.
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 10:09 pm
Go gettum DPF…the MSM is only very reluctantly on board with this…
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 10:16 pm
On the face if it, it really does start to look like Bill made some donations to Labour Party/MPs in Liu of actually meeting the citizenship eligibility criteria
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 10:20 pm
How can a wally who believes stuff like this ever get to be a Minister of the Crown? And he went to Harvard? Was it on some kind of ethnic quota because this is the kind of stuff you’d expect to hear from some drongo at the local pub, not in the Beehive.
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 10:28 pm
Jones said he wasn’t briefed by Cunliffe or immigration officials.
”I don’t remember ever talking to David Cunliffe about this guy … I don’t ever recall being briefed by the immigration department on this issue. And the man was a resident as far as I was concerned, as I recall.”
He added: ”Um, in fairness it’s four years on. Without having access to the file I just can’t fully recollect. But what I do know is that there was always a mystery as to whether the man was who he says he was. Those were allegations.”
He was aware of the Interpol red notices – issued because the Chinese government ordered arrest warrants for embezzlement.
”Yes, yes that was referred to [in Yang's case file]. And that related to allegations that the Chinese government, as I recall, was making.”
… the Banks syndrome: can’t bloody remember
But –
Jones gave assurances to Labour leader David Shearer over the weekend and showed him notes he has made from 2008.
He gave an account to colleagues at a weekly caucus meeting this morning. He will decide whether to release those notes over the weekend.
Gives assurances … he CAN remember – even [for some reason] has notes
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 10:30 pm
DPF:
Sorry to be a punctuation stickler, but I’ve noticed you have an acute habit of not using question marks. You know how to use them as evidenced by questions 1-7, but from question 8 onwards you start leaving them out. I have no other qualms with your writing other than that. Thank you.
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 10:32 pm
Shane Jones coffin had 1 nail banged in after his 1 person hotel orgy, I’ve got a feeling this matter will be the final one required to short circuit his political career……..David Cunliffe will be sniggering into his trim latte’ and David Shearer will be slowly wondering why he bothered opening his mouth on this subject.
In fact Shearer’s gotta be wondering whether the 200K for the leaders job is worth it – I mean keeping 2 million starving Africans alive with 5 half eaten fruit peels was a walk in the park compared to leading the labour losers.
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 10:33 pm
DPF
That’s not very subtle DPF….
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 10:40 pm
bhudson
Perhaps he was only in danger if his backers funding had been squandered by his application being rejected.
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 10:57 pm
I’m confused. If I recall the interview correctly, the news reader and Duncan Garner both attribute the advice about execution and harvesting of organs to “a senior Internal Affairs official”, but Mr Jones attributes them to “a senior government official in a minister’s office”. So it was possibly not advice from the Immigration department but from an adviser in “a minister’s office”. Which minister? Was the official a departmental secondee or a so-called “political adviser”, ie a party appointee? It would be nice to know.
Vote:May 22nd, 2012 at 11:25 pm
Just watched the full-length version of the interview. Mr Jones makes it clear that the advice did not come from Immigration Department officials, so presumably it came from Internal Affairs.
I may have misinterpreted his reference to “a senior government official in a minister’s office”. He may just mean that the advice was offered to him in his (Mr Jones’) office. If so, mea culpa.
Vote:May 23rd, 2012 at 12:30 am
the file Jones saw is here:
http://www.investigatemagazine.com/jonesfile.pdf
Vote:May 23rd, 2012 at 1:41 am
Looking at your questions maybe we need an inquiry into the adequacy of advice Jones received before making his decision. Jones said he was satisfied on humanitarian grounds, well let us see how adequate the Departmental advice was on that. I can just hear Jones say now that he had other information and relied on that. But that will be bullshit of course.
Vote:May 23rd, 2012 at 4:02 am
“Excellent. I repeat the call for a full independent inquiry into the Liu affair. ”
The fact that such an inquiry hasn’t already been called is a disgrace.
Why are we as a country fixated on trivial bullshit when the real problems we are facing, like what Shane Jones did, are ignored?
Vote:May 23rd, 2012 at 4:55 am
Wasn’t he already a resident? You can live in NZ as a resident without trouble. Residents basically have all the rights of citizens ( including voting) except they can’t get NZ passports. So declining the application was in no way equivalent to signing a death certificate. Liu just wanted a passport.
Vote:May 23rd, 2012 at 6:59 am
OK… So we’ve got Wishart and Garrett so far in this thread… All we need is for Pete George to pop up and those of us playing can shout BINGO!
Vote:May 23rd, 2012 at 7:39 am
> maybe we need an inquiry into the adequacy of advice Jones received before making his decision.
Haha that’s priceless. So Jones is criticsed for ignoring official advice, but on the basis he he may have accepted advice, that advice needs to be seriously looked at. The problem with having your caking and eating it is: you end up getting fat.
Vote:May 23rd, 2012 at 7:40 am
> All we need is for Pete George to pop up and those of us playing can shout BINGO!
It won’t be long…
Vote:May 23rd, 2012 at 7:40 am
Oh fish_boy, no need to squirm so much. It’s Shearer that’s on the hook over this odd deal by Jones, not you.
Vote:May 23rd, 2012 at 8:03 am
Haha – categorising ross69 as a partisan lefty is as easy as accepting that dear leader is in urgent need of a top orthodontist.
But ross… some things are totally indefensible. This issue involving Shane Jones, is one of them.
Please read the file notes provided by Ian Wishart (12.30am). Then ask yourself whether you still believe in the tooth fairy.
Vote:May 23rd, 2012 at 10:36 am
Having just read Ian Wishart’s copies of the relative documents I cannot see why a (non political) Independant enquiry cannot be established immediately, as Patrick Gower suggeted last evening on TV3.
Crikey, I actually agree with Paddy – what a day.
Vote: