The Guardian reports:

A businessman has won his legal action to remove search results about a criminal conviction in a landmark “right to be forgotten” case that could have wide-ranging repercussions.

The ruling was made by Mr Justice Warby in London on Friday. The judge rejected a similar claim brought by a second businessman who was jailed for a more serious offence.

The claimant who lost, referred to only as NT1 for legal reasons, was convicted of conspiracy to account falsely in the late 1990s; the claimant who won, known as NT2, was convicted more than 10 years ago of conspiracy to intercept communications. NT1 was jailed for four years, while NT2 was jailed for six months.

Granting an appeal in the case of NT1, the judge added: “It is quite likely that there will be more claims of this kind, and the fact that NT2 has succeeded is likely to reinforce that.”

Both men demanded that Google remove search results mentioning the cases for which they were convicted. These include links to web pages published by a national newspaper and other media. Google refused their request and the men took the company to the high court.

This right to be forgotten is such terrible law. You have Google and Judges deciding on a case by case basis whether people can hide their previous criminal offending.

How about we don’t censor the Internet and just allow people to judge for themselves how relevant a previous offence is.

Hamish Rutherford writes:

Although New Zealand produces a fraction of 1 per cent of the world’s oil, the industry is significant in relative terms domestically.

And in terms of gas, we are a major user – and we will run out in 11 years time now.

But it will do little, if anything, to New Zealand’s use of oil and gas.

Household power bills will probably rise, because the dynamics of the gas industry have changed, if only slightly.

Oil will continue to be imported, just as it has.

So we will import more oil, and pay more for our gas.

This will feel good for environmental activists, but unless there are more significant moves to dampen demand, all this will do will be to grant more geopolitical power to countries in the Middle East and of the likes of Venezuela, holder of the world’s largest oil reserves.

As well as having less respect for human rights, these countries are also less likely to heed warnings about climate change.

Yep this is good news for Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and bad news for New Zealand. It makes us more dependent on foreign oil.

The prime minister and her colleagues repeatedly insisted that no jobs would be affected by Thursday’s announcement.

If she means that none of the 4500 people directly employed in oil and gas exploration will learn today that they are losing their jobs, she is probably right.

But the claim is tenuous beyond this. Many of the companies involved in the sector are international, operating across many countries.

Some will continue to operate in New Zealand for years to come. Others will decide to shut up shop and redeploy the capital elsewhere.

Of course they will close down. If they have no future in a country, why stay there.

Also it is unclear if current exploration permits will be effectively honoured, as if they do find a supply of gas or oil, the Government may not give them permission to actually use it.

An interesting article from Newsroom on why the Air NZ and Virgin alliance ended.

I tend to agree they were an uncomfortable fit. A good example is recent flight between Hobart and Wellington. They were Air NZ between Wellington and Melbourne and Virgin between Hobart and Melbourne.

As most will know, you only need to check in 30 minutes before a domestic Air NZ flight. That’s great, especially if travelling with a young one.

On the Hobart to Melbourne leg, I was astonished to see Virgin required us to check in no later than 90 minutes before the flight. That is a ridiculous requirement for a domestic flight.

But it got even worse. We turned up to Hobart Airport around 105 minutes before the flight and discovered the check in didn’t even open until 90 minutes before the flight. Yes Virgin tells you to turn up prior to the check in even opening.

What this means is not only are you there really early for no good reason, but so is everyone else. So you have a massive queue for check in. And to make it even worse, they have only one staffer operating a check in desk. So a huge wait.

I realised that this was deliberate behaviour by Virgin. As they are too cheap to have more than one check in staff member, they force the entire flight to turn up 90 to 120 minutes before the flight so everyone can get checked in on time.

So I won’t miss the end of the Alliance. But it will be good if Air NZ can find a domestic partner in Australia so one can book end to end if travelling on from the major cities.

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has announced:

The Inspector-General has today announced the establishment of a Reference Group. The Group brings together a broad range of individuals and groups, all of whom have specific expertise and experience that in one way or another touches on the work of the Inspector-General’s office. The first meeting of the Reference Group was held last week in Wellington.

The Inspector-General scrutinises whether New Zealand’s intelligence and security agencies (the NZSIS and the GCSB) act lawfully and also whether reasonable New Zealanders would think their conduct was “right” (ie “proper”).

“The Inspector-General stands in the shoes of the public: we try to ask what the public would ask” said the Inspector-General, Cheryl Gwyn.

“The Group brings together people from outside government and the intelligence community who can keep us in touch with legal, social and security developments in NZ and overseas, inform our thinking about our work programme, and provide feedback on how we are performing our oversight role.”

The members include:

• Nicky Hager – Journalist, Author
• Deborah Manning – Barrister

Were Kim Dotcom and William Sutch not available?

UPDATE: One of the other members is the former (Acting) Soviet Ambassador to NZ. This is really going to please our Five Eyes partners! While he has been a NZ academic for some time, was he made to declare if he was a former Soviet Intelligence Officer before being appointed?

Audrey Young writes:

There was a time when Leader of the Opposition used to be called the worst job in politics.

That was before Simon Bridges got it.

There hasn’t been a happier Opposition Leader.

The Government has had three miserable weeks out of the past four, mired in misfortune of its own making, including ministerial mishaps involving Clare Curran and Shane Jones, positioning on Russia, and hasty transport announcements.

It is unusual to have an Opposition Leader so happy and a PM so clearly unhappy.

But the lesson of the past few weeks is clear: the Opposition is capable of capitalising on its weaknesses and that constitutes a very successful start for Bridges.

It was one thing for Bill English to say there has never been a stronger Opposition- numerically he was right.

It is quite another to actually function strongly or competently. But it has, and from the top.

It has been a fairly seamless transition for Bridges who has been in job only 47 days after a five-way contest for the job.

Bridges has benefited from low expectations. Most observers are surprised that he has taken to the job so confidently.

It doesn’t mean he will be able to compete with Ardern for popularity. He is a more polarising figure.

Justin Trudeau was very popular also.

His biggest challenge is not to be liked but to be noticed by voters, and then to present himself as a strong alternative.

Fortuitously, two of the Government’s biggest issues of the day, roads and oil and gas, Bridges knows backwards as a former Transport Minister and former Energy Minister.

And agree or disagree with him, they have given him a platform to speak with some knowledge and authority.

Both issues will have a long running life in the term of this Government and both are defining issues.

Not least they will both be crucial to National’s bid to undermine New Zealand First as self-proclaimed champions of the regions.

I think NZ First have shown themselves to be the Judas’ of the regions.

In the days leading up to Monday’s press conference, both had variously suggested former Health Minister Jonathan Coleman had been responsible for leaky buildings at Middlemore and that desperate health boards had been using their capital expenditure on operational expenditure (pretty much a sackable offence).

In the absence of any supporting facts, Ardern decided to call the situation at Middlemore “emblematic,” a label which seems to mean it can still be used for political purposes even if it is not true.

Indeed.

Stuff reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it is “entirely plausible” that any tax changes stemming from the tax working group could be balanced by tax relief elsewhere.

In a video with Stuff political editor Tracy Watkins, Ardern not only repeated that there would be no tax changes in the first term of Government, any changes which came as a result of the tax working group could well be “neutral”.

“We’ve ruled out any changes to, you know, significant new tax changes in this first term. It was a big issue during the election and it was one that we very openly worked through,” Ardern said.

“We’ve said we’d set up a tax working group, we have, it’ll report this term, but anything it suggests wouldn’t take effect until a new term and people will have a chance to vote on it, but it could be entirely plausible that it could be fiscally neutral.”

I’ll be delighted if they do go for a fiscally neutral package, and they’d be wise to do so.

If the TWG just proposes a range of new taxes which results in many or most people paying more tax, then they will have a huge battle on their hands. There is absolutely no need to increase the amount of taxation in New Zealand – especially with their commitment to keep spending under 30% of GDP.

If the TWG proposes a package that broadens the tax base but reduces rates (or changes thresholds) then there is a reasonable chance of widespread support for the package.

Jacinda Ardern lies in a bizarre attempt to trash talk New Zealand.

The committee of Parliament was set up to review the ETS, not question climate change. We have this from the Chair himself:

The select committee was set up to review the emissions trading scheme. The question of climate change was most definitely outside our terms of reference.

— Peter Dunne (@honpeterdunne) April 16, 2018

And to remove any doubt:

All I will say is she is wrong, completely so

— Peter Dunne (@honpeterdunne) April 16, 2018

It was a review of the ETS. It was not an inquiry into whether climate change was real or not, or mainly caused by human activity. It may have looked into the what uncertainty there is around various models, but this is vastly different to what the PM has tried to portray NZ as some backwards country where an official committee of Parliament was set up to try and deny climate change.

Incidentally something that attracted little reporting is we actually reduced our greenhouse gas gross emissions by 2.4% in 2016.

In fact gross emissions reduced by 2.7% from 2008 to 2016. This is in contrast to the 9.2% increase under the last Labour Government that Ardern was a staffer for.

The Herald reports:

The lawyer for murder victim Karla Cardno’s stepfather is pleading for the Government to live up to its claim to be compassionate and overturn a deportation order.

Lawyer Keith Jefferies compared the arrest and detention of Mark Middleton last week to the dawn raids of Pacific Islanders in 1970s.

On Tuesday, immigration officers stormed the workplace of Middleton, accusing him of living here illegally, and put him in a cell at a Wellington police station until Wednesday afternoon.

He’s lived here since 1962, and suddenly the Government feels the need to storm into his workplace and stick him into detention so they can deport him. What the f**k.

Middleton’s threats, in media interviews more than 17 years ago, to kill his stepdaughter’s murderer appear to have put him in the sights of Immigration New Zealand.

And he was wrong to do so, but considering Daly raped and tortured his stepdaughter, you can understand his anger. But to wait 17 years after his conviction and decide he should be deported is just baffling.

The 60-year-old moved from England with his parents when he was 4 years old in 1962 and hasn’t been back since.

Isn’t this what Labour condemned the Australian Government for doing?

Matthew Hooton writes:

They had me fooled.

Last week I wrote here that the Middlemore “scandal” meant a brand-new hospital in South Auckland was required.

The next day, my colleague Lizzie Marvelly wrote in the Weekend Herald that there was “shit in the walls at Middlemore” as a result of “years of drastic underfunding”.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern picked up the theme, saying “the state of Middlemore Hospital … is emblematic of what we’re seeing across the board”. Consequently, next month’s Budget wouldn’t have all the goodies it might have.

The impression ministers and their media allies portrayed was something like a faecal version of The Blob. After a week of sunlight, though, something doesn’t add up.

 

First, Middlemore Hospital continues to function, including its highly regarded intensive care and burns units. Would such services continue were sewage really seeping down the walls as implied?

Of course they would not.

Second, no one in authority seems to have been told about the alleged sewage or even the alleged extent of leaky buildings.

Former Health Minister Jonathan Coleman has been most derided for his alleged failure to be on top of his job.

But, just two-and-a-half weeks ago, new Health Minister David Clark and local MP Louisa Wall also denied being told about the watertightness issue, let alone the “sewage-in-the-walls” story.

There is now some controversy over what Clark was told and when.

Counties Manukau District Health Board (CMDHB) didn’t mention the issue when it presented to Parliament’s health select committee in February.

So they didn’t even know about it.

The Government also confirms that Middlemore’s building problems can be fixed for just $27.5 million, less than 0.28 per cent of its $9.9 billion capital allowance for the next three years and a fraction of $298m spent on Middlemore’s new Clinical Services Block.

As revealed by the Herald, CMDHB also planned to spend $8.6m this financial year extending its innovation hub but not $7.3m to re-clad its children’s hospital. Its capital budget has been significantly underspent. This suggests a strange set of priorities if the Middlemore “crisis” is as dire as implied.

So is it really a crisis?

Is it too cynical to think the story may have been, at best, grossly exaggerated by the Government for political purposes?

No one seems to know anything about the sewage-in-the-cafeteria story, or where it came from, and no images have emerged despite even the lowest-paid hospital worker carrying a camera phone.

This is a good point. We’ve all heard about it but not seen it.

On Monday, Ardern announced her Government’s communications strategy involves drip-feeding stories of alleged public-sector underfunding by the previous Government. We can only speculate, but was the Middlemore sewage story the first?

Probably.

Barry Soper writes:

There was never any doubt that Labour was going to order an inquiry into what went on in Afghanistan almost eight years ago when the SAS was involved in a raid, along with American helicopter gunships, on two remote villages.

And there’s little doubt in what this inquiry, with two million bucks being thrown at it for starters, will come up with – the allied forces were under fire and responded.

So $2 million will be wasted on an inquiry. Half a dozen Ministers in both the last and current Government have viewed video footage of the raid.

He’s now seen video of the raid and says claims in the book Hit and Run, written by Nicky Hagar and Jon Stephenson, that they were defenceless villages he doesn’t accept, he thinks there were armed people present.

He doesn’t only think it, he obviously knows it having seen the video.

There were two descriptions of the villages under fire in the book.

The first said they “contained only a few farmers and mostly women, children and elderly people.”

The second said they were mainly occupied by “women, children and the elderly when the troop carrying helicopters and Apache gunships arrived.”

Both accounts fail to mention armed rebels in the villages, now acknowledged by Parker. 

A rather key detail.

So why have an inquiry?

The acknowledgement by Parker would seem to have sealed the fate of the book’s veracity.

It’s a waste of money and the claim by Parker that the controversy hasn’t died down is flimsy.

It didn’t die down because of Labour and Green politicians insisting an inquiry is needed.

The latest One News Colmar Brunton poll has Labour dropping 5%, and behind National.

It is interesting to compare how this Government is doing compared to the previous one at the same time. How does April 2017 and April 2009 compare poll wise.

• Main governing party – 43% in 2017 and 57% in 2009
• Main opposition party – 44% in 2017 and 31% in 2009
• PM as Preferred PM – 37% in 2017 and 51% in 2009
• Opposition Leader as Preferred PM – 10% in 2017 and 6% in 2009

The poll was done up until the 11th of April so it doesn’t include the announcement that they want to kill off the entire NZ gas and oil industry. The next one might see a further drop!

Stuff reports:

National and Labour have selected their candidates to contest the Northcote seat in the June by-election.

Labour is giving its 2017 general election candidate, Shanan Halbert, a second run at the seat, while National has announced high school dropout turned economist Dan Bidois.

People in National will be very relieved that Labour went with Halbert again, rather than Richard Hills. Hill has a high profile as an Auckland Councillor, and is a genuinely nice and popular person. He would have maximised Labour’s chances of winning.

Bidois was raised and educated in Auckland, leaving school at 15 to complete a butchery apprenticeship with Woolworths. He then went on to study at the University of Auckland, and attended Harvard University on a Fulbright Scholarship.

During his speech on Sunday, he described himself as a “Māori kid who dropped out of high school, and now has a masters from Havard”. He is of Ngāti Maniapoto descent.

Once again National shows you can select top quality diverse candidates without any need of quotas.

The Herald reports:

RNZ chairman Richard Griffin says a phone call from Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran was “inappropriate” and releasing her voicemail would further damage RNZ’s relationship with her and the Government.

Griffin has defied the request of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation select committee to hand over the voice recording of the message left on his mobile phone by Curran about his upcoming committee appearance.

In his letter to committee chairman Jonathan Young, Griffin outlines his reasons for declining to hand over the voicemail.

“The Minister’s inappropriate call to me and the content of the message on the phone, whatever she said or meant, is not any part of the matter requiring correction.

“What she said, or intended, is a fresh issue which is also irrelevant given that it had no part in the decision RNZ and I had already made to return to the committee and apologise at the earliest possible opportunity,” he says in the letter.

“In fact I would be breaching my own ethical boundaries and, I believe, further damage relations between RNZ, the Minister and the wider Government, which is an integral part of the framework within which we work, if I complied with the request.”

I understand the recording has now been deleted. Minister Curran should be very grateful to Dick Griffin that despite her behaviour, he has acted professionally and done what he can to minimise damage to her.

Let’s have a look at how flawed the decision on oil and gas exploration was. First of all, is this something that was party policy?

• Labour – did not say they would do it
• NZ – actively promoted themselves as champion of oil and gas
• Greens – were in favour of a ban

So this was not Labour Party policy before the election. Labour did not campaign on doing this. They kept it a secret as they knew they’d lose vote if they had told people before hand.

How about the coalition negotiations? Was this something they had to agree to in order to form a Government?

No. This was not in the coalition agreement.

So how did this major policy change come about? Due to a Greenpeace petition! Yes, that’s right.

The Government just made a decision with zero consultation with the public or industry.

A major policy change (especially one to close down an entire industry) would normally be consulted on. The Government might produce a discussion document, then a consultation document and or draft policy. You get feedback. You allow people to make submission. You weigh up the pros and cons.

They did none of this.

They did not tell people before the election they would do this.

They did not consult on this.

So this is why people should be angry. Not just because it is a bad policy. But it is a bad faith policy. Thousands of people will lose their jobs, and they didn’t even get a chance to have their say. They may have even voted for Labour, never thinking that the moment they were in power they would implement a policy banning their industry – that was not in their manifesto, and was not in their coalition agreement.

The Herald reports:

On the surface, the Facebook page had all the markings of an authentic Black Lives Matter group.

Its profile picture — “BLACK LIVES MATTER” in block text against a bright yellow background — echoed the style and colors of the one used on Blacklivesmatter.com.

The “Black Lives Matter”-emblazoned merchandise sold through the Facebook page all benefited related causes.

And it had nearly 700,000 followers, making it the largest Facebook page affiliated with the movement.

 

Or so people thought.

As it turns out, the page was apparently a fraud, tied to an Australian man who had also registered dozens of other domain names related to black civil rights causes, according to a CNN investigation. And it remained in operation for more than a year, despite multiple efforts to warn Facebook that the page might be fraudulent.

The alleged “Black Lives Matter” Facebook page also brought in at least US$100,000 in donations through third-party online fundraisers such as PayPal and Patreon, CNN reported. But the network’s investigation found some of that money was deposited into Australian bank accounts, and that at least one online fundraising account was linked to Ian Mackay, an official with the National Union of Workers, an Australian trade union.

How unusual – a unionist with a strong capitalist streak.

The Times of Israel reports:

Israel’s opposition Labor party said Tuesday it was suspending relations with British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, accusing him of showing hostility to the Jewish community and allowing anti-Semitic statements and actions from his party officials.

This is a pretty major development. I have a sister Labor Party say you’re allowed so much anti-semitism we won’t deal with you anymore.

Acknowledging the long history of friendship between the two parties and their previous leaders, Gabbay said that on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day he had no choice but to halt all formal relations with the British opposition leader.

“As Israel approaches Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day this week, we are reminded of the horrors of anti-Semitism in Europe and our commitment to combating anti-Semitism of all forms and in all places,” Gabbay wrote. “As such, I write to inform you of the temporary suspension of all formal relations between the Israel Labor Party and the Leader of the Labour Party UK.”

Corbyn is of course also well known as a friend of Hamas.

Claire Trevett reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Finance Minister Grant Robertson stood up yesterday and announced Labour would not be able to afford to do what it had wanted to do in next month’s Budget because it had to put its money into health and education.

The reason for this, they insisted, was because National had left things in a more parlous state than Labour had expected.

Such claims should be taken with a grain of salt.

Labour were warned often they should not pre-allocate the operational allowances. They are designed for unexpected expenses.

And some of the stuff they are trotting out is not unknown. They say ECE has not had a general funding increase for some years. Well surely they knew this before the election unless they are totally incompetent.

It is all a matter of priorities. Labour is saying it will spend $1.2 billion a year on free tertiary fees for students. Is that really more important than everything else they say they can’t fund?

But Budget 2018 is not the ultimate target of the softening up exercise on voters.

The ultimate target is 2020 when Labour will go back to the polls and seek to convince the public of the need for new or higher taxes.

Yep. Labour will want to hike taxes if they can.

A guest post by David Garrett:

During the summer, I found myself waiting outside in the sun on Lincoln Road in Auckland while a friend attended to some business inside his bank. While  taking in the passing parade, I witnessed a Chinese woman in a large late model Mercedes attempting to parallel park. To my incredulity – and while a line of  cars banked up behind her – I counted 13, yes  thirteen  to and fro movements while the woman attempted this relatively simply manoevre. She finally achieved a parallel park of sorts, albeit with the passenger-side wheels about 1.5 metres out from the kerb, meaning her car projected 1.5 metres out into the stream of traffic.

I approached the woman and asked if she had a New Zealand drivers licence. She replied that she did. I then asked if she had been tested by a native New Zealander or someone from her own country. She replied: “None of your business” which of course she was perfectly entitled to do. I have no authority.

 For my sins I currently have a fair bit to do with teenagers, and getting a driving licence is a big issue for them. Quite simply, there is no way the woman I observed could possibly have passed the kind of test my daughter and her friends are subjected to, with fails for such “faults” as being overly cautious at a stop sign, or  indicating for two seconds less than the prescribed length of time before a turn.

As luck would have it, not long after I observed this woman’s astounding performance, it was announced that some 500 licences had been cancelled – I later learned the recipients were all Indian – after the discovery of corruption in the driver licencing testing system. The testers responsible are all now before the courts. No prizes for guessing where they are from.

My initial enquiry regarding what I had observed and the  testing of foreign drivers elicited the following response from a  wee snowflake called Zoe Walker at the NZTA:

“The Transport Agency does not share and will not tolerate your outdated and prejudicial view of overseas drivers, particularly Asian female drivers. However we do acknowledge that at the core of your misguided comments is a genuine concern…”

Long story short, after I received a formal apology for the lecture,  the exchange  eventually led to a formal  OIA request made to the NZTA. My questions were as follows:

1. What rules, if any, prevent an overseas born driver from taking a practical driving test from a tester born in their own home country? (For example, is there anything to stop a Chinese born driver from taking a test from a Chinese tester?)
2. What steps if any is your organization taking to monitor tests conducted by overseas born testers on candidates from their own home country?
3. After the recent discovery of corruption among drivers licence testers, how many of those testers have been barred from being testers?
4. Are  any of the testers found to have been taking bribes or other inducements still permitted to test drivers, and if there are any,  are there any restrictions on those persons?

The answers to the above questions were:

1. There are no rules that prevent people from overseas countries undertaking a driver licence test with a testing officer from the same country;
2. The Transport agency undertakes sophisticated scanning of driver testing data including individual testing officer performance. [this is the kind of meaningless non answer often heard in the House at Question Time, and could better have been answered by one word: None];
3. The endorsements of all testing officers involved were suspended immediately…The suspensions remain in place while charges laid by NZ Police are pending;
4. As charges against three testing officers are still before the court, none have yet been convicted of taking bribes or inducements.

In my view, the testers currently facing corruption charges, and other “holes” in the system, indicate that we do not have a driver’s licence testing system that is fit for purpose.

As things currently stand, drivers from Commonwealth countries are permitted to drive here for one year before obtaining a New Zealand licence. This includes drivers from Tonga, one whom is  my wife. She obtained her Tongan licence without having to be troubled by any test – that is the way many things are done up there, and probably in an unknown number of other jurisdictions.

With the greatest respect to my wife, there is simply no way she was capable of driving safely here without a crash course – pardon the pun – from me. There are of course no motorways in Tonga, and the sections of “open road” – on which the limit is 65 kmh – are not more than a few kilometres long at best. No-one parallel parks; drivers simply park their cars at an angle in the nearest gap.

India is of course part of the Commonwealth. We already know that 500 drivers from that country  have had their New Zealand drivers licences cancelled because their tests were administered by allegedly corrupt testers who have been suspended, and  are now before the courts. God knows whether  their experiences in India equipped them to drive for a year here without facing a tester – even one from the sub-continent.

Another OIA reveals that no figures are kept on whether drivers responsible for crashes are New Zealand born, or born overseas.  There is of course  much  anecdotal evidence of New Zealanders taking the keys from overseas drivers driving on the wrong side of the road, or otherwise driving dangerously.

In short, I do not want anyone  to have to face the woman I saw attempting to parallel park – especially not on a country road.  At least on the motorway one can identify the foreign driver in the middle lane doing 65kmh while gripping the wheel in terror, and give them a wide berth. From all of  the above, it is surely quite clear there is a problem?

I suggest  it has been put in the “too hard” basket because the problematic drivers will be those with brown skins, and not Australians Canadians or Brits. Someone – either in the NZTA or the government – needs to find some backbone and act.

DPF: Note I don’t agree with the suggestion that one should ban people of a particular ethnicity from testing other members of that ethnicity. That is treating people as a group rather than individuals. If there is a problem with certain testers, then the better response is greater auditing including investigators posing as test sitters and seeing if they get passed when they shouldn’t.

• US took part in strike on Syria in response to use of chemical weapons by Assad regime
• UK took part
• France took part
• Canada “supports the decision”
• Australia “supports these strikes”
• NATO “I support the action”
• Turkey “welcomed the strike”
• EU “stands with our allies”
• New Zealand “therefore accepts why the US, UK and France have today responded”

The New Zealand position sticks out like a sore thumb. They can’t bring themselves to say they support the action, so the Government uses the weasel word of “accepts”. They believe that no country ever should take military action unless Russia and China agree not to veto it. Doesn’t matter that Assad is using chemical weapons against international law and treaty.

Statement on Holocaust:

This morning the Government was advised that targeted military action would be taken in response to the latest chemical weapons attack in Germany, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.

“The Government has always favoured diplomatic efforts and a multilateral approach. The use of the veto powers at the League of Nations prevented that course of action. We have always condemned the use of the veto, including by Germany in this case.

“New Zealand therefore accepts why the US, UK and France have today responded to the grave violation of international law, and the abhorrent use of chemical weapons against civilians.

“The action was intended to prevent further such atrocities being committed against Jewish civilians.

“We stand firm in our condemnation of the use of chemical weapons in German concentration camps. This is clearly in breach of international law.

“It is now important that these issues are returned to the multilateral processes including the League of Nations,” Jacinda Ardern said.