Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Inside the Shrine

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  • Rob Stowell,

    Collins must be looking very shaky now documents show just how planned the ‘private dinner’ with the Orivda boss and a Chinese official was. (MFAT briefings probably don’t cover table manners :))
    It’s a tough decision for Key. She’s got powerful friends in caucus and cabinet; she’s been a major player in this govt. Quite the opposite of Williamson.
    So four and a half months from election - sack or stand her down now, and try to limit the damage? Or keep toughing it out? Rock or hard place?

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    It appears that Milk is not the only thing Oravida gets across the boarders.
    Seems they like our Swamp Kauri too.

    Swamp kauri can be exported without Ministry of Forestry (MAF) approval if it is a finished or manufactured product; or a personal effect.

    Whole or sawn salvaged swamp kauri stumps or roots can be exported with a MAF milling statement and export approval.

    Swamp kauri logs may not be exported, either whole or sawn.

    Its all above board though, honest, honest as a Justice Minister. We are sending them table tops…

    Mr Miller said some of the products listed on the export forms, such as “table tops” and “temple poles”, could have been produced from swamp kauri logs so they would not have been included in the swamp kauri stump timber exports.

    Any skulduggery would surely be picked up by Assure Quality Ltd an honest and well established company …

    We have been working with Australasia’s food and agricultural industries for over 100 years –

    which is like totally amazing since…

    AsureQuality was created on 1 October 2007 by the merger between ASURE New Zealand Limited and AgriQuality Limited.

    Doesn’t appear on the companies list website though…
    I did a little research on the board members and discovered I was not the only person doing so.
    nudge nudge…

    btw, the preview pane has a glitch Russ.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to Rob Stowell,

    It’s a tough decision for Key. She’s got powerful friends in caucus and cabinet; she’s been a major player in this govt. Quite the opposite of Williamson.

    Collins is politically too big to fail for them.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

  • Chris Waugh,

    Reading this:

    It has happened before in these islands: the slow but inexorable eclipse of one culture by another. The process begins with the deliberate co-option and corruption of local elites. With their connivance, land and resources are progressively alienated by impossibly wealthy newcomers to the point where the economic, political and cultural autonomy of the indigenous people become fatally compromised.

    When they first arrive the newcomers constitute a tiny and seemingly harmless minority. But, within the space of just a few decades, they begin to outnumber the original inhabitants. Naturally, the latter are constantly reassured that what is happening is in their long-term interests, and that they have nothing to fear by allowing the wonders of the newcomers’ imported world to supplant all the familiar treasures of the old.

    I was thinking, is Chris Trotter going all Yellow Peril on us? And then:

    Is it permissible, I wonder, to ask how much of the New Zealand political class the Peoples Republic of China has already purchased?

    Oh, he is. But a very specific kind of Yellow Peril. I wonder, does he mean to suggest that Collins and Williamson would never have gotten into trouble had they not been corrupted by Chinese people? Seems to me China is merely an incidental detail and the corruption would've happened regardless of the nationality of the non-governmental players.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 2401 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to Chris Waugh,

    Oh, he is. But a very specific kind of Yellow Peril. I wonder, does he mean to suggest that Collins and Williamson would never have gotten into trouble had they not been corrupted by Chinese people? Seems to me China is merely an incidental detail and the corruption would've happened regardless of the nationality of the non-governmental players.

    Extended to any "citizenship for the highest bidder" type, it's basically John Frum economics, which I've mentioned before.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

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