Posts by Keir Leslie
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Of course, this stuff is all basically theoretical. We know that in practice, the GCSB and the NZSIS are, at best, paranoid reactionary organisations captured by the institutional interests of international Spookery. Whether or not they are even competent at that is a separate question.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Matthew Poole,
But fundamentally, parliamentary intent is a fiction for the interpretation of Acts. I am saying that you don't need to look to Hansard to determine Parliament's intent, because the Act is clear. It is entirely possible that certain Members of Parliament had different intents. That doesn't matter: Parliament's intent should be derived from the words of the statute in the first instance, and then from other sources if the statute is unclear or ambiguous.
I also don't see why it's impossible to think that a duplication of function might be intended: we often duplicate functions in an teempt to restrain the powers of the state.
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Intent doesn’t beat plain meaning of the statute: “take no action” is pretty unambiguous. (And ambiguity should be interpreted against the Crown in these cases.)
Looking at Hansard to determine the limits of a law restraining the Crown is, uh, close to being constitutionally bankrupt.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Or we could just not do it: the capability creates the need.
(Also, there's a perfectly good reason we don't let the GCSB spy on us even if it would be more efficient, and it's because they are the external spies: no monolith, as a le Carre character would say.)
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No kidding Thatcher was a racist...
Especially, yeah, I'm not going to criticise Banks, a man who would have seen the local economy utterly destroyed by a set of deliberate choices made by Thatcher, for his hatred. Fair enough.
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And seriously, what on Earth is Shearer thinking putting out that release? Have some respect for the people of Britain, man.
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And really, sticking to the line is not hard. "Sorry Paddy, but I'm not going to comment on that hypothetical situation" or "As I said, New Zealand calls on North Korea to ..." is pretty much Media 101, and it isn't even problematic in that context.
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The PM needs to do better than that on questions of war and peace. Like, that's a question to which a correct answer is: "I'm not going to discuss that hypothetical", or "New Zealand is committed to a peaceful solution and calls on the DPRK to de-escalate" or whatever the line is. It's really important to stick to the line that's been carefully formulated to do the least to cause war in the Korean Penisula, and not start rabbiting on about unforseeability, or the mountain of conflict, or whatever.
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It's probably worth remembering that the New Zealand government employs many of our best accountants, lawyers, and economists. I would imagine they could figure out the details of a power buy-back requirement if they were asked to...
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Hard News: Done like a dinner, in reply to Andrew Stevenson,
Generally speaking we can resolve matters of national importance through an elaborate and sophisticated system called "Parliamentary democracy".