Posts by Katharine Moody
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Another perspective on Dr Jian Yang, MP;
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Access: Is the tide turning for disabled…, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
Yes, I noticed that too!
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Access: Is the tide turning for disabled…, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
the Green’s disability policy page has a very unfriendly ACCESS DENIED message.
Probably moved the page in an election policy re-design - try this one;
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Hard News: Campaign 2017: Buy a…, in reply to johnno,
Prediction for tonight – the poll says Labour and the Greens can govern alone. Will the Gallery pull back from their “tax is damaging Labour” narrative?
Spot on.
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Hard News: Campaign 2017: Buy a…, in reply to simon g,
A good, long read here. He’s basically right
I couldn't agree more.
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Hard News: Campaign 2017: Buy a…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
because you suspect they’re a spy by association
No, I don't think he's a spy by association. My point is that given his background the Chinese intelligence community will be interested in him - highly likely monitoring him in some way - just as US intelligence kept in touch with my Dad routinely until he died.
Had my Dad decided to run for elected office in Russia and having been successful in being elected, you can bet your bottom dollar they'd have had a far more heightened interest and the surveillance on my Dad would have been stepped up.
There are all kinds of risks to NZ to my mind associated with this. It's just the sort of association that is best avoided regardless of the quality of the individual to do the job of an MP. As one of the experts in these matters commented:
"It is something I would have hoped that his colleagues in the National Party would have put to him in the vetting process ... because certainly on its face, it would be quite disconcerting."
"There are countries with whom we are friendly, but there are no friendly intelligence services."
I agree with him - and would have the same thought about it regardless of country-of-origin, but more so for the world super powers.
What I'm saying is that, given the knowledge National Party had they exercised their power and position in our democratic process unwisely, very unwisely.
And just as an aside, as part of the reporting I read that our MPs do not go through NZs security clearance process as is done for our public servants who are working with sensitive information. I was one of those public servants who had to obtain a security clearance before I could take up the job that I was offered. Very important to my mind.
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Hard News: Labour's RNZ+ plan: largely coherent, in reply to Shaun Lott,
I would also say younger ones too. The ad-free children's content was instantly missed in our house.
And middle age ones too. It was missed in our household. We watch a lot of Maori TV now for the same non-commercial, non-mainstream type content reasons that we used to watch TVNZ 7.
I love what Labour is proposing. I got so sick of all that TVNZ charter wranglings of past governments that made no real difference because you can't be a commercial public broadcaster to my mind. Can't wait for the new public broadcast offering.
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Hard News: Campaign 2017: Buy a…, in reply to mark taslov,
None of these things are particularly unusual.
Agree there. Certainly no fault on the part of the individual. What is unusual is that given the National Party had full knowledge of this background, that it did not exclude the individual from standing as a Member of Parliament. If they made that judgement, then that's just plain weird and unusual.
My Dad was a US serviceman during the Korean War - his job was that of cryptographer. On leaving the service, the government gave him a scholarship to study - no entrance exams required and I'm not sure he actually 'graduated' from High School. He didn't like the way the degree programme (physics) was structured, so he just did papers he liked (physics and Russian language being his favourites).
Before he got a degree (it was unlikely he'd have got one anyway, as he wouldn't take the mandatory schedule of papers for a BSc), the government gave him a job here;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonne_National_Laboratory
And when he left that (and government service altogether) at the age of about 30, the spies knocked on his door unannounced to have a chat and physically verify he was living where he said he was living every year for the rest of his life.
Dad was never a spy - just a guy working on/with military classified stuff.
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Hard News: Campaign 2017: Buy a…, in reply to dave stewart,
how can the disparities in the current tax system possibly lead to a more fair and equitable NZ
Exactly the point Labour should be making. I had initially wondered whether the TWG after the election idea was an accommodation to the Greens given they are campaigning on a CGT and Labour is not?
Yes, TOP did say they would pull out if not looking to get to 5%.
And I couldn't agree more on bare land covenants and the part they play in our housing affordability problem.
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