Posts by Russell Brown
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Oh, and all the other places where animals are used for testing and research. Note that the largest users are commercial organisations.
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In case you were doubting whether this is just venal election-year politics, the Prime Minister tweeted this image last night. Really.
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The text of the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill is online and being debated now.
It includes this:
Advisory committee not to have regard to results of trials involving animals
“(1)In performing the function set out in section 11(2)(a), the advisory committee must not have regard to the results of a trial that involves the use of an animal.
“(2)However, the advisory committee may have regard to the results of a trial undertaken overseas that involves the use of an animal if the advisory committee considers that the trial shows that the psychoactive product would pose more than a low risk of harm to individuals using the product.”So the advisory committee may consider overseas animal trials that indicate a product is risky, but is required to ignore such trials that indicate a product is low-risk.
Un-fucking-believable.
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Well, well, well.
Press release from Grant Robertson:
There is further evidence Judith Collins’ assistance of Oravida resulted in her husband’s company getting its milk into China, Labour MP Grant Robertson says.
“Documents show that Oravida had its milk shipment accepted by Chinese border control in December, while milk from the same supplier exported by a different company was rejected.
“Oravida’s fresh milk supplier Green Valley Dairies also supplies the same two litre bottles to Guangzhou Ruima Food Limited, simply with a different label.
“However, Guangzhou Ruima Food’s fresh milk shipment in December was rejected by China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ).
“Judith Collins’ intervention was designed to benefit Oravida.
Credit due to Chris Waugh, who spotted the Green Valley rejection in a PAS thread back in March. At the time, I knew Green valley supplied Oravida's fresh milk for the Chinese market, but I couldn't reconcile it with Oravida. Now it's clear. Oravida was special.
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Matthew Poole,
It gets a bit messy that she was also writing as chair of the school BoT, but it’s still appropriate for an MP to be be concerned about relationships between the police and their local school.
I quite agree. But you should have seen the guy I argued with on Twitter today who insisted it was far, far worse than what Williamson did because he only "enquired" and she had interfered with police operations. I know, I know ... even one of my other rightie followers, an ex cop, wasn't swallowing that.
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Sacha,
“My view of that social media is there’s a lot of trolls and bottom feeders on that. In the end they get in people’s head. It’s an anonymous sort of situation it’s a form of cyber bullying, I don’t engage in that.”
[cough]Horseshit[cough]
Mr Key in today's NBR Ask me Anything on his blog readership:
I read very few...Kiwiblog, Whaleoil and from time to time the Standard.
His social media standards are so high he reads only the most nasty and unpleasant blog sites. Fucksake.
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Mikaere Curtis,
Exactly how he squares that with the stated objective of Collin’s promoting Oravida, I have no idea.
As Brent Edwards noted on Checkpoint yesterday, believing the emails offer credence to Collins' account requires a very unusual reading of a couple of them.
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The Herald has the story on NZ First MP Tracey Martin's letter to police, which seems to be distinguished by its utter lack of resemblance to the Williamson case.
She probably shouldn't have written a letter as a school board of trustees chair on MP's letterhead, but apart from that I don't think this is a problem for Winston.
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Not really feeling Tracy Watkins' POV here:
But Key has raised a question mark over her judgment, by suggesting she should take time out. He could be playing with fire.
Ambitious to succeed Key one day, Collins has built a faction in Parliament. And recent days underscore the fact that, once wounded, she takes no prisoners.
Collins has also aligned herself with dumped minister Maurice Williamson, who is struggling to accept he did anything wrong, after Key sacked him last week over the Donghua Liu affair.
And Williamson has form as a caucus wrecking ball after he destabilised Bill English's leadership.
Key is too powerful to worry about enemies in his caucus - but their numbers may be growing.
Williamson has little sway and I think Collins is in no position to put pressure on Key and Joyce. But if they fancy a re-run of Citizens & Ratepayers, they're welcome to try.
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
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.
Fair enough. But you can't legislate for judgement, which is the core issue in Collins ' and Williamson's cases -- and for that matter, in Shane Jones' conduct around Bill Liu. It seems to me you don't want to rule out ministerial discretion or the ability of MPs to intervene to help constituents.
Oravida's donations are properly declared -- although I really think there should have been more comeback on Key for telling Patrick Gower Stone Shi had bought two games of golf with him "for charity", when the charity was in fact the National Party. That was a straight-up lie and that's one thing that bugs me about all this. This morning's Herald editorial just takes it as a matter of fact that Collins has been dishonest with the public.
