Kiwiblog

In a fit of good timing, the NZ Herald editorial calls for the evidence against the Urewera 17 to be made public, and the Dom Post and the Press run editorials explaining that they are doing exactly that, and why.

I suspect the NZ Herald was calling for the Government to officially release the info, not for their competitors to do it!

The revelations might cause a few people to pause before they acclaim those arrested as peaceful heroes.

Secret surveillance of Urewera bush camp trainees reveals discussions about killing people for practice, throwing Molotov cocktails into gas-filled buildings, blowing up power stations, television networks and the Waihopai spy base.

Electronic bugs also revealed United States President George W Bush as a possible target, and a discussion about assassinating National leader John Key.

Police say their bugs also picked up talk of copying IRA and Iraqi guerrilla tactics by using hit-and-run squads for bush and urban warfare.

The affidavit says that, between November 2006 and September this year, six “quasi-military training camps” were held in the Ruatoki area. Police say the trainees planned to use small squads to commit terrorist acts.

Bugged conversations recorded talk of plans for urban and rural warfare, of killing police, removing Pakeha farmers, assassinating politicians and committing actions so brutal that the public would think al Qaeda was responsible.

The good news for John Key is they expect him to win the election. The bad news is they wanted him to serve just five days!!

In another bugged conversation, in a car on August 17, a suspect talks of killing Mr Key after the next election: “Get someone to assassinate the prime minister, the new one, next year’s one. Just been in office five days, bang … Yeah, John Key … just drop a bomb … Just wait till he visits somewhere and just blow them … They won’t even find you.”

The affidavit says surveillance of training camps shows:

· Vehicle ambushes and military-style drills with live rounds.

· “Terrifying” counter-interrogation training, including holding guns to participants’ backs and accusing one of being a police informant.

· How to throw Molotov cocktails.

· How to extract colleagues under rifle fire.

In the background to the affidavit, police say one trainee using the codename Bl@ckmask hacked into the National Party website in 2004.

The affidavit says police watched or recorded trainees leaving their homes around the country and heading toward Ruatoki, often picking up others en route. Police say they stopped following the suspects once they drove into Ruatoki, for fear of being discovered, but they installed video cameras on accessways and at campsites, and bugged a camp meal room and sleeping room.

At the last of the camps, police say surveillance picked up 18 people and 14 firearms.

14 firearms is a significant number.  I am looking forward to especially hearing from the peace activists who were present how having 14 firearms illegally used at a camp fits with the peace movement’s objectives.

So who is the Shortland Street serial killer?

Three parties to choose from tonight! ….

Yay, weekend is almost here.

Thursdays should be abolished, so we reach the weekend early!

So who’s up for a holiday to Fiji then?

The Wellington fireworks were pretty damn good I have to say.

It’s Guy Fawkes time!

Matt McCarten in the HoS looks at Labour over the last week:

Ordinary people who assault their colleagues are sacked on the spot. In fact, people get sacked for a lot less than what Mallard did. For example, I’m dealing with an employment case at the moment where a worker who was assaulted by another worker so he went home. On the way out, he impulsively kicked the offender’s car.

The next morning, the victim apologised to the offender for kicking his car and promised to pay for any damage. Both workers shook hands and made up. However they both got the sack: the offender for punching the victim, and the victim for damaging the offender’s car. On Friday, the Employment Authority upheld the employer’s decision to fire the victim on the grounds of safety. This week Mallard was appointed the new Minister of Labour responsible for this department that rules that this worker could be sacked for an offence for which he himself received a wrist smack. The irony and the unfairness is sickening. Even my very clever lawyer says that the victim has no chance of being reinstated, as employment law is clear, no matter what the provocation. Clearly the rules of behaviour that the rest of us abide by do not apply to politicians.

I suspect there are many in the union movement who have had employees in similiar situations.  I’m pretty sure none of the employees got effective promotions as a reward for their actions.

It’s an open secret now, with the resignation of Steve Maharey and the demotion of Mallard, that Phil Goff is Clark’s anointed successor. If Labour loses the election next year, Goff will be unanimously appointed to the party leadership. When you’ve got senior leaders of the party’s left wing articulating why Goff would make a good leader, you know it’s a done deal.

I said much the same thing a week ago. But I find it interesting that Andrew Little twice refers to Maharey’s retirement as a factor in his reconsidering to stand. The race may have just been re-opened.  The fact Clark didn’t appoint her most competent Minister to a senior domestic portfolio suggests she may not be too thrilled with the idea of Goff as sucessor.  To be fair to Clark though, I doubt she wants any talk of any successor.  Not that there is any threat to her leadership – a challenge is unimaginable prior to the election.

Yay it’s Friday!

So October is ending, there’s a reshuffle today, the Solictor-General has been asked to allow terrorism charges to be laid and anything else topical …

Reshuffles, punches, polls, policies, rugby league, Auckland Royal Commission – go for it.

This is getting to be really funny.  All the well meaning do gooders keep telling the Tokelau people that being a colony is bad and they should vote for independence.  And they were amazed when the vote a year or so ago missed out on the 66% super-majority by 6% or so.

So they held an another vote, because I mean how dare they vote the wrong way. And story after story told us there was absolutely no way this vote would fail. Yet it has, by 2% this time.

Priceless.

Have fun. 

Usual rules.

Anything topical, not covered elsewhere.

For general discussion on issues that don’t have a specific blog post about them.  Normal rules of discourse still apply.

I blogged on Friday a list of public mayoralty polls.  Also interesting to see whether the polls reflected the results. If they do not, that is not necessarily a problem with the poll.  It depends when it was taken, what events have happened since then etc.

One comment I will make though, is with such low turnouts, I personally always filter the random sample by asking respondents how likely they are to vote, and not proceeding with those less likely to vote.  Far more people say they will vote than actually do at local body level. This may partly explain why the result in North Shore was so different to the Herald poll.

Waitakere: Herald Digipoll has Bob Harvey on 49% and John Tamihere on 32%. Result: Harvey won.

Auckland: Herald Digipoll has John Banks on 44% and Dick Hubbard on 35%.  Result: Banks won.

North Shore: Herald Digipoll has George Wood on 63% and Andrew Williams on 15%. Result: Williams won.  A huge huge difference to the poll.

Manukau: Herald Digipoll has Len Brown on 29%, Dick Quax 22% and Willie Jackson 16%. Result: Brown won.

Hamilton: Waikato Times/Versus has Bob Simcock on 24% and then Roger Hennebry on 7%. Result: Simcock won.

Christchurch: A Press/Opinions poll has Bob Parker on 42% and Megan Woods on 24%. Result: Parker won.

Far North: A Northern Advocate/Curia poll found a tight race with 34% for challenge Wayne Brown and 28% for Mayor Yvonne Sharp. Result: Brown won.

Whangarei: A Northern Advocate/Curia poll has former Mayor Stan Semenoff on 35% and Mayor Pamela Peters trailing on 19%. Result: Semenoff won.

South Taranaki: A Western Institute of Technology poll has Bryan Vickery on 10% and Steve Pivac on 9%.  Result: Ross Dunlop won.

Wanganui: A Wanganui Chronicle/Curia poll found 46% support for Mayor Michael Laws and 28% for John Martin. Result: Laws won.

Manawatu: A Manawatu Standard/Versus poll has Mayor Heather Tanguay on 38% and Jono Naylor on 30%. Result: Naylor won easily .

Nelson: Nelson Mail has Kerry Marshall on 18% and Watson on 16%. Result: Marshall won.

Tasman: Nelson Mail has Richard Kempthorne on 32% incumbent John Hurley on 29%. Result: Kempthorne won.

Dunedin: A Curia poll found Mayor Peter Chin looking to be easily re-elected. Result: Chin won.

Overall the polls were “right” in most races, but the result did differ in South Taranaki, in Palmerston North and in North Shore.

As I have mentioned previously, it has been a long time since I’ve had the time to read all comments myself. Luckily some good people have offered to help me with the moderation. So they are not totally anonymous, I’m posting a short sentence on each. None of them post comments themselves a lot, but have been long-term readers.

Richard is a thirty something year old mainlander. Into fitness. Supports Binding CIRs.
David is a retired vet, a (very briefly) former PSA rep, who once voted for Winston. We forgive him this lapse )

Jordan is a student, is involved with National, and pretty good with computers and other things.

Ray is a retired farmer, a “liberal” who has voted for every party there is (no, no not Social Credit I hope ). Another mainlander.

We did have un-PC Lesbian as the fifth moderator but she got busy. A real pity, because apart from her fine sense of humour and judgement, we would have been extremely politically correct with both a gay and a lesbian as moderators!

The moderators have been discussing stuff on our mail list. It may help people for me to share what I posted:

Hard and fast rules are never going to work, as it is always a judgement call. I suggest we use this list to discuss actual potentially offending comments, and see what consensus we get on them. Sometimes one has to look at the context. Also I look at the person – are they someone who started off making genuinely good points, and they just got abusive when someone taunted them, or are they just a troll whose only purpose is to enrage people so the comments become unreadable.

I tend to regard the C word as never acceptable, except in the most extreme circumstances. The F word doesn’t worry me a lot but I tend to agree if directed at someone it is probably over the top. But there is a difference between say someone referring to effing idiots and calling someone directly a f**kwit.

I don’t like homophobic stuff, and have warned a few people about it. I also really really dislike anything speculating on an MP’s sexuality or their family. Ie the Peter Davis is gay nonsense.

One should also refer to the the Posting Policy. It may get more detailed in time to come.

As I am a believer in second (and third) chances, I am also going to reset everyone’s ban periods back to the start. If currently banned you need to see out the period of the ban, but after that the clock goes back to zero, so any further suspension will be for one week only, and then doubling each time there after.

If there are any complaints, I refer people to the first paragraph of the Posting Policy

A few pics from the big 4-0 on the 11th.

The amazing Spider Pig cake made by Aimee. If you don’t know who Spider Pig is, check Wikipedia. The theme song is very catchy.

Former flatmates Emma and Anna.

Creative genius and all around good guy John Ansell and Young Nats capo Alex Mitchell.

‘

Bill, Chris and myself.

A group of gate crashers who I have never met before!

And this will teach Gabby a lesson for having that one drink too many!

Astonishing – a Canterbury Regional Councillor has claimed $66,203 in mileage for 94,577 kms. Would be cheaper for the Council to lease him a Council car, than keep paying such mileage.

Audrey Young looks at the options for Helen Clark.  She notes that she has never before demoted Ministers during a parliamentary term.

Her options range from minimal change with Laban from outside to inside Cabinet and Street and Jones to outside to a full reshuffle with major portfolios exchanged.

Audrey does a hot and not list, being:

HOT

• Cunliffe
• Cosgrove
• Mahuta (being somewhat generous here I would say)
• Parker ( more impressed if he actually came out with some policy)
• Laban
• Street
• Jones
• Hughes
• Chauvel

NOT

• Burton
• O’Connor
• Barker
• Samuels

I would add Hodgson and Cullen to NOT. Both capable but both unpopular in their current portfolios.

First of all a thumbs up to Damien O’Connor for offering his resignation. The complete opposite to David Benson-Pope who had to be crowbared out of office. And I think Clark is right not to accept it at this stage.

But I am highly amused that a Minister of the Crown offers his resignation by text message. Can you imagine it?

sry 4 Fkng ^ hellN. twas realy lamo. DY wnt me 2 resign?

And what was Helen’s reply?

vry lamo idd Damien. bt nt as lamo as George on hs bst dy so I won’t sak u.

I can just see the Cabinet Secretary turning those into a formal minute!

1. Who has the right to post comments on this blog?

Apart from me, no-one at all has the right to post comments. Posting is a privilege, not a right.

2. Okay, so who is allowed to post comments here?

Anyone at all, up until the stage I ask them to stop or suspend them. I welcome comments, and they add a lot of enjoyment to the blog for myself, and I am sure others. Advertising spam however is always unwelcome and is deleted and blacklisted on a regular basis.

3. Have you ever banned anyone from posting?

Sadly, it now numbers quite a few

4. What is the easiest way to get banned?

To attack me personally. Quite simply it will not be tolerated. I welcome people to disagree with my views, to correct my errors, to debate what I assert, but if you attack my integrity, my character etc I will terminate your privileges.

4. How long does a ban last?

It is up to me, but my policy at the moment is one week for the first time you get banned, two weeks the second time, then one month, two months etc etc. It doubles everytime. The theory is people learn from this. The theory is sadly lacking empirical evidence.

4. So how else can I get banned?

It is subjective, and ultimately a decision on whether the nature and style of your posts is detracting from the usability of the blog. The idea is to be debating issues and events.

If I think that your purpose is to disrupt the blog, rather than genuinely offer honest opinion, I’ll lose patience at some stage. If you continually turn the blog into a personal flamewar I’ll suggest you go get your own blog.

When you browse this site, the following information is recorded and made available to me:

The pages you browse on my site
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Your IP adddress
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I reserve the right to use or publicise any of the above information. However, unless there is good reason, I intend to only publish information in summarised form (44% of browsers used are Firefox) or with no personal details (such as machine name or IP address) attached. The most common information published will be amusing search engine queries.

If you post a comment on my blog, your IP address plus the date and time you made the comment are recorded. If you vote in a blog poll your user name (if registered) and IP address are recorded.

I retain this information for at least a year and will in all circumstances release it to NZ authorities if presented with a warrant. I may hand it over without a warrant also, if I think a comment broke the law or was defamatory. I reserve all rights to do what I see fit with this information, as it is my site.

I have given information to the Police on two occasions. Once in relation to threats made by a user against an MP, and once in relation to a murder investigation.

However those who know me will testify that I only try to screw someone over, if they have done something particularly nasty aimed at me. I’ve only twice needed to retalitate in the last ten years, so it is very hard to get onto my revenge list. The bad news is that there is no known method to get off the list, once on it

So the bottom line in terms of privacy in browsing or commenting on this site, is that in 99.99% of all cases I will keep your personal information strictly confidential to me. However if you break the law, defame someone, or really piss me off, then you have been warned!

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