Posts by Matthew Poole
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What's with all the bitching about bike helmets? Seriously, do you people actually not understand how vulnerable your heads are? You can be as careful as you like, but unless you don't go more than about 10 km/h you're at risk. Shit happens. I had my bike slide out from under me as I was rounding a corner at maybe 20km/h, because there was a little bit of grease that I hadn't seen. My head could quite easily have hit the ground. A friend cracked a solid-shell helmet after her bike went from under her while doing a U-turn. No helmet and she'd quite possibly be one of the vegetables you read about, and she's a careful cyclist.
You can be as arrogant and cocky as you like, but you're not invulnerable. If you ride in traffic, there's risk. Being as alert as possible won't stop some blind retard from opening their car door just as you go past, and then what do you do?
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To give your mate a little insight, the "Don't drink and fry" ads are nothing to do with Labour's rumoured social engineering.
The Fire Service Commission has a contracted obligation to reduce avoidable fire deaths in this country. We already have an extremely low rate of avoidable fire death (as contrasted with things such as people dying when their car crashes and burns, or through an industrial accident), but it could be lower. And one of the leading causes of home fires is people who get home from a night out and start a fry-up. They pass out on the couch, and from there we've seen the other ads about what happens when a pot catches fire. Your mate, like most of the rest of the population, is obviously unaware of the risks, which is why the ads were produced in the first place. Does he consider the work on making drink-drivers social pariahs to also be Labour's social engineering?
I have no time for National when it comes to the Fire Service (Roger Estall, anyone?), but I seriously doubt that they'll have those ads gone by lunchtime if they're elected. If they do then their Internal Affairs minister should be dragged out and shot, because it would be a completely cavalier attitude to public safety.
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Eddie, the parliamentary term limit as set in the Constitution Act is entrenched by the Electoral Act with a 75% Parliamentary majority or simple electorate majority. Can't remember if that's single- or double-entrenchment.
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FletcherB: The ACC system's intention is to remove much of the American tort crapshoot (and resultant lunacy) from NZ's legal system. The result is that it pays for the costs of treating drunk or otherwise law-breaking drivers (such as those who crash while fleeing from the cops), and other people whose injuries aren't strictly "accidental". By removing the right to sue for injuries caused by a third party, we end up being in the gun (as it were) for this case.
The alternative, and it would rapidly become a very slippery slope, would be to allow recovery against parties who cause intentional injury to another. I say it would become a slippery slope because such allowance is easily extended to drivers who injure cops when they crash into police cars during a pursuit, followed by innocent victims of pursuit crashes, followed by innocent victims of DUI crashes, and suddenly we're back to the point which ACC was meant to avoid, where everyone has to carry liability insurance. -
Insolent, the last thing we want is more privatisation. We've already established that, where key infrastructure is concerned, leaving it to the private sector is a recipe for getting shafted - Telecom, AIAL, electrickery... all private, all gouging the users.
Also, as far as retirement investments are concerned, telco's that aren't rapacious incumbents are exactly the type of good investment that KiwiSaver should be pursuing. They offer stable, long-term returns without being high-risk. The problem with getting investment isn't that they don't return, but that they don't offer the short-term, high-value returns that retail investors want. People want strong growth within a couple of years, and broadband networks don't do that. They're something you invest in when your outlook is long-term (defined in economics as no less than seven years, and preferably greater than 10), and if you're saving for retirement that's precisely the kind of return you want. Stable, low-risk, and preferably backed with a solid asset base.
We were sold the "clean regulatory model" under National, and now look where we are - duking it out in the race to the bottom of the OECD. Hands-off doesn't work where you have a very strong, entrenched player competing in a market with high barriers to entry. Don't come back with wireless, either, because anyone with a clue knows that the only way to get really fast connections is by terrestrial link. Wireless is the low-speed, entry-level competitor, not the one that'll let digital businesses do anything worthwhile.
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not only charged underthe old law, convicted under it too
Oh really, Dave? You're sure about that? Remember, we're talking about a defence that saw people get off after taking to their children with riding crops, vacuum-cleaner pipes, and fence palings. I, personally, wouldn't have wanted to bet on a conviction, given the things that juries have allowed as "reasonable force" in the past.
The law changed ensured that a conviction resulted in this case (though the father's guilty plea does make it a moot point), rather than making it a total crap-shoot that could have been thrown by a single demented clown who thinks that you can't possibly love your kids unless you beat them frequently.
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It all seems a bit crowded. Police/AOS/STG (all cops so far?) then SAS.
The AOS and STG are subunits of the Police, yes. AOS units are formed within particular districts, the STG is a national unit (but as I understand it the personnel are split between Auckland and Wellington).
Going to Helen was the process followed as per SAS involvement. I think we could loose STG or a domestic focused SAS.
No, going to Helen was the process for S I S involvement. The Security and Intelligence Service are detailed for anti-terrorism intelligence work, and are required by law to keep the PM and the Leader of the Opposition appraised of their operations. The S A S, or Special Air Service, is the NZ military's elite special forces unit, which has a counter-terror response tasking in addition to covert special operations. Deploying the SAS within NZ requires the permission of the PM (or the next-most-senior Minister), as does any deployment of military units for domestic law enforcement purposes, but they were not used in this operation. The rules for deployment of the military to assist the Police are laid out in s9 of the Defence Act 1990.
My suspicion is that there is a cross over of staff in STG/SAS due to the shortage of skilled types not in Iraq as contracts already.
That would be highly irregular, if not outright illegal. They draw from different pools of people - the STG from the cops, the SAS from the military (mostly the Army, but also RNZN and RNZAF) - for a start, not to mention that the STG are cops, and therefore you can't just grab any old soldier, even the very best of them, and put them in a blue uniform. The converse is also true, since no matter how good STG members are they are not trained soldiers.
It's a nice conspiracy theory, but the reality is that the two groups are not capable of filling each others' roles except in a very narrow, specific area. There's far more to the SAS than just counter-terror, since they also do behind-enemy-lines raids and the like (Bravo Two Zero, for example), and far more to the STG since they are also cops and have roles to play in intelligence gathering, risk assessment, and close protection. -
Then ensure Domestic aspect is included & strengthen Police role as domestic anti-terror agency - as opposed to SAS.
Shep: The Police are the "domestic anti-terror agency". The Special Tactics Group exists precisely because the cops are the lead agency in responding to terrorist incidents. Calling in the SAS is a big deal, requires approval from the PM, and must be reported to Parliament at the earliest opportunity. They are the "Oh shit, it's all fucked and we cannot possibly deal with this ourselves" response, and since the STG train with the SAS it would have to be really bad for the incident controller to ask the SAS to be responded.
The only time in NZ history that the SAS have been even alerted to respond for a domestic situation was Aramoana, but the Anti-Terrorist Group (precursor to the STG) brought the situation under control before an SAS response was necessary.For the people who are suggesting treason, do any of you actually understand what the "owing allegiance" requirement means? It is more than simply being a citizen, it is being someone who holds a special place in society - that place being as one who has sworn an oath of office. People in uniform swear oaths of allegiance (take a look at the Police Act for the wording of their oath).
So treason is out, and would never have been an option. These are not members of the armed forces or the Police, they're civilians who do not owe allegiance to the Queen. -
Good on the SG for the way he worded his comments. It's pretty apparent where the blame lies, and that the Police were at least partly justified in acting when they did.
I imagine that Cullen is mightily grateful that he delegated his authority to the SG on this one, since it makes the process much cleaner to have a non-politician making the call.My opinion of Winston went up quite a lot with his public admission that the police were failed by the pol's, and that he has apologised to them for his part in the whole fiasco. Getting a politician to admit fault in public is almost impossible, as we all know, so it's nice to see one say that he fucked up. If only the rest of them had the same degree of integrity and capacity of introspection.
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Russell said:
The attraction for the telcos is in only having to deliver to a single point of entry for the network. In Europe, they compete quite strongly to deliver service.
That's in Europe, Rus, where they have this bizarre thing known as, well, competition. It's a bit of a strange concept in this neck of the woods.
I'd be really interested to try and get something like this going in my moderately-affluent Remuera/Epsom border area, maybe hooked up to Vector since their honking great pipe runs right down GSR. Dunno whether they'd actually be interested, though, or whether even the fairly rich folks living around me could afford what would doubtless be a quite extortionate fee.