Posts by George Darroch
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It has resulted in some excellent courses being dropped after one year because they "only" got 80 or 90 students. Fuckers.
Wow. Even Auckland isn't that bad. I think half of the courses I did at the start of the decade in first year would have had more than 100 students. The short-sightedness of universities in NZ is hard to fathom sometime.
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'ang on! Can we take the "we" and shove it right back where it originated this time please? The MUFNACT Party have consistently shoved under urgency with the usual cringe argh vomit of "that's what we campaigned on" and "we won" crapaholic justification.
Labour voted for it too, and in this case the Maori Party stood up for something principled. So the representatives of around 88% of NZ voted for this.
Doesn't make it any less shit. I just feel like a lot, perhaps most of middle NZ has bought into this crap, and we need someone who will shake them out of it.
See right there .You will believe, it will be ok, don't panic. I mean it's not about me right? Yeah right.
When I say it's not as bad as I thought it would be, I mean that in very relative terms.
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Okay, I've just had a look at the legislation.
There are problems, but it isn't as bad as it could be. There appears to be no information sharing capability, and the officer performing the DNA extraction has to hand the person a form with a number of pieces of information on it. But it's still not good law. There are problems with it.
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the stick i rememba moist in NZ was that of the man from said
"dna squad" who obliged me to run his around my gums for about 10 minutes before i was allowed to take delivery of my replacement passport and leave yr country..whole biz proceeded from incident of arrest after i'd pocketed on impulse pack of refill razors at supermak't checkout on finding i had not enuff change to pay for..
Oh, that reminds me, the police are already telling people that they are obliged to give DNA samples, when they are manifestly not obliged to. Including in the last two months from a political activist I know, who was lucky enough to know their rights ("what legislation gives you the right to demand my DNA?")
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This isn't a well thought-out question, and I will probably regret it, but isn't compulsory DNA gathering and storing for suspects the same as fingerprinting? Is it the sense that the DNA is more personal, and the gathering more intrusive? Just saying...
DNA contains a huge amount of information about you, and our ability to access that information increases rapidly over time. It tells many things about your body, including your mind.That's most unlike a fingerprint, which presently can only be demanded in very limited circumstances.
We've just given that power to the police to access that information from absolutely anyone they want. All they have to do is 'intend' (Minister's quote marks) to charge someone. We have no idea of the specifics in the bill yet. We may also have given that power to other agencies; I have no idea, since the legislation was rammed through in hours. Most such legislation now gives the police the power to give this information to a wide range of agencies.
As someone who has seen police and state powers aimed at "criminals" regularly used on my friends and family on the basis of political activity in the last decade, and against others in decades before, these concerns are very real and in no way abstract.
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Doing-things-to-criminals (or suspected/alledged) doesn't seem to get too much challenged, but in this case it may have been enhanced by liberal use of parliamentary urgency. After it passing being generally considered too late for the debate.
I am willing to bet any reasonable sum of money that at least one political activist I know (and that list includes members of my own family) will have their DNA taken within one year of this bill receiving assent.
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Well you could apply that to a fair few people in parliament who opened their mouths and still got elected.
A list as long as my arm.
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Not a good election advert, but I can see how people made the link. Just tenuous that it will help National's brand, or advertise the TV show.
Like Craig, I wonder how seeing Bill English speak would encourage people to support National.
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People who haven't seen it and - Lord save us - want to, the video is on Scoop for the moment.
Probably just myself.
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OT: Just a reminder that Sue Bradford will be delivering a valedictory in Parliament at 5:40 this afternoon.