Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Russell Brown,
Sure. Right after Judith Collins addresses the multiple contradictions between her statements in the House and the documentary evidence.
Or we can actually expect everyone making incredibly serious allegations of corruption under parliamentary privilege to be more than usually scrupulous about not only getting all their facts right, but to remember you can lie by omission or wrongful emphasis as well as by commission. Especially when it involves people who can't respond on a level playing field.
Collins should be held to account for her own behavior, not use as a free pass for anyone else.
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Andrew C,
This doesn’t seem to be correct, at least not according to the GM of Green Valley Dairies anyway
Well, surely that shouldn’t be too hard to corroborate and if it turned out Grant omitted (quite unintentionally, I’m sure) that non-trivial context he will stand up in the House and publicly retract and correct the very serious allegations he made under parliamentary privilege. Right?
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But they weren't, and so it got to the point where it was causing serious political damage to the government. What happened then was inevitable.
Which made me face-palm hard at reading this:
Labour supported the bill. Labour MP for Palmerston North, Iain Lees-Galloway told Parliament he is glad the Government "buckled to public pressure".
Yes, Ian. The Government buckled with terrible legislation that should at the very least have received proper scrutiny and debate, but didn't because it was just too politically inconvenient for any of you nitwits. And in the end, as others have fisked much better than I ever could, Parliament is busy patting itself on the back for creating more and worse problems than they dubiously solved.
Yay...
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I think we need to start a moral panic against the menace of urgency abuse. Will nobody think about the politicians!
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to "chris",
Incidentally, and this is a pet gripe, I’m a little tired of Chinese giving me these phoney names on the pretext that I wouldn’t be able to pronounce their Chinese name
Well, bully for you Chris. Perhaps you’d like to check that white privilege a notch or two, and consider those Anglicized names can be a more pleasant alternative than having your name offensively mispronounced on a daily basis.
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Matthew Poole,
I actually don’t see it as a problem at all. I consider it entirely proper for an MP, even a list MP, to raise with police management matters of concern regarding the management of the policing of their community
Matthew: Having worked for MPs, I don't think I'm speaking out of school in saying MPs and their staff are extremely careful (or bloody should be) about not engaging with Police (or more commonly Work & Income) in any way that could even be perceived as trying to exert improper influence. No, I don't think Tracey Martin should be tied to a flagpole outside Parliament and flogged but, FFS... it should be a no-brainer that you don't do outside business on Parliamentary letterhead. (Then again, I'm the kind of naif who thought it was no-brainer that Minister paid for their own hotel wank-starters and conference season booze, and how did that work out?)
Nobody thinks it the least bit dodgy that local body mayors have close relationships with their police district’s senior management.
You know, Matthew, I think some hip-hop performers and promoters not a million miles from here might beg to differ. But that's a whole other kete of kai moana for another time and place...
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Russell Brown,
We’ve been amateurs at corruption compared to our Australian brethren.
Absolutely positively 100% pure truth that, and I didn’t mean to say otherwise. But damn, let’s find the political will to sweat the (relatively) small stuff before it gets that bad, because cultures of corruption don’t just spring up fully formed. And somehow, we managed to see the need for the IPCA without anything as dire as the Wood Commission.
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Russell Brown,
Not one of which would impact significantly on the Collins case.
No, but I'm pretty sure words like "sleaze" and "corruption" are going to be flung across the chamber with undisguised glee today, and as soon as there's no political points to be scored it's quietly back to the status quo. And while "strong conventions" are all very nice, I'm beginning to wonder if we need something akin to the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption -- established by legislation introduced by Liberal Premier Nick Greiner in 1989, as part of the anti-corruption platform he ran on. (And which triggered his resignation three years later, ironically enough.)
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Russell Brown,
So no, I don’t think it’s a straightforward policies-for-cash deal, it’s a network of influence drowned in the gravy of entitlement.
OK, Labour & Greens folks – I’m going to fucking double dog dare y’all to use every opportunity you have to challenge your respective leadership to hold a joint press conference announcing that a rock solid bottom line for the first hundred days of the next Labour-Greens government will be legislation to:
1) Strengthen the Register of Pecuniary Interests, including independent control and real penalties for playing fast and loose with the rules.
2) Registration for lobbyists – all of them, whether the unions like it or not – and full public disclosure of their interactions with all politicians and civil servants.
3) Stronger reporting/public disclosure of hospitality, and a whole less fucking cuteness around sitting in corporate boxes and pretending politics is never discussed.
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Kumara Republic,
It’s not exaggerating to describe it as some sort of House Un-New Zealand Activities Committee.
It’s not only exaggerating spectacularly on the basis of a cursory examination of the historical record, but seriously unhelpful. There’s more than enough solid grounds to criticize Collins on, without red-lining the hyperbole.
If Rob Salmond is right, Collins’ own colleagues have been phoning journalists with material.
With all due respect, I'll take that with a grain of the same salt I sprinkle on WhaleOil's sources in Labour's caucus.