Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Yes - they could all take a leaf out of the Maori Television frontpeople. Professionalism under fire, esp. in last few weeks.
I've only caught bits of Maori TV news and commentary recently, but I'd concur. Shaping up reasonably well overall. Now if only I spoke more than a few dozen words of Te Reo.
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If the National Party can't convince enough people like me to keep paying our subs (and donating millions of dollars in unpaid labour each electoral cycle), then it doesn't deserve to survive.
I'm not a member of a political party but at first glance I'm in favour of this too.
I've never looked at state funding of political parties, so know nothing about how it would work. Anyone care to enlighten about the hows and whys? Linkage?
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Seriously folks, every time I hear this my mind boggles. Do we really need to go into the huge list of reasons why locking down this part of Wellington would be very difficult, expensive and futile? Let's try a few samplers:
I think if the police thought there was an armed offender on one of Wellington's main streets they would shut it down in a second. It'd be screw the traffic, rush hour, pedestrians etc, there's a guy with a gun running around everybody get back a couple of hundred metres.
So I don't think 'difficulty' was the issue. I think they did it because of different perceptions of the two situations. Whether that's because of different perceived threats, or just plain racism up to you to decide.
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I derive much recreational merriment from by annoying them.
You haven't thought of taking up a sport involving some sort of ball or racquet? No? Just checking.
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I haven't been paying close attention, but is there anyone on the electoral finance bill debate who's making good sense?
From what I've seen/heard, it's just been different breeds of pigs gathering around the trough trying to get the best deal for themselves. If the name of the bill had 'democracy' in it, then it'd be in the running for 'most amusingly named bill of 2007'.
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In relation to evidence which is not admissible not being made public, this is not a “fallback position”. Inadmissible evidence is inadmissible because it does not meet the rules of evidence and therefore doesn’t COUNT as evidence.
I think you missed Tracy Watkin's point.
Her focus wasn't on the evidence that was given to these organisations, but whether they were involved in helping the police make their decision. As she herself noted, the evidence will probably never become known.
If for example the Crown Law Office provided advice to the police based on the evidence, and the police followed that advice, then it puts the police in a different position. And questions would have to be asked of the Crown Law Office and their role. While the Office might not be able to provide a copy of the advice they gave the police, they should at least be able to confirm whether or not they gave advice.
To requote Tracy:
There is a genuine public interest in knowing whether the police charged recklessly into uncharted territory, or whether they only proceeded after being comforted by assurances that they were on the right track.
If it had been a “very real terrorist threat”, charges would have been brought under the TSA. Collins said it was almost impossible, NOT impossible. There is a universe of difference between “very disturbing activities” and a “real terrorist threat.”
It's not clear what 'almost impossible' means as Collins said it. He might be meaning the standard of proof must be high, which is fine, or he might be meaning that the law has been written in such an obscure way that it would be 'almost impossible' to convict a genuine terrorist with it.
There was however a time, when it would be 'almost impossible' for a wife to have her husband charged with rape. 'Almost impossible' for a person to have their same sex partner charged with sexual assault. I'm not sure if we want laws that are 'almost impossible' to apply.
Personally I want laws that catch people who are committing crimes, enhance public safety, and protect civil liberties. If the law doesn't do that then it needs to go back to the drawing board (or be junked). That's the question that needs to be put to Collins.
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I too could think of reasons why the raids in Ruatoki were treated a lot different than elsewhere. Racism is certainly one of them, and the police aren't perfect in that department. Another is of course that the Ruatoki raids were where the weapons were. If they knew there were no weapons in Wellington, they wouldn't use the AOS there. There are still questions to be answered about what took place in Ruatoki, as a bunch of people have noted.
I thought Jackson made some good points there. The one I didn't like was this one:
To ensure Maori "buy in" to any Review Maori (and particularly Tuhoe) should be involved in choosing the Review members.
Of course some Pakeha may oppose such a suggestion with the claim that Maori members would be biased but the essential racism of that view should be dismissed because such people would never claim that Pakeha would be similarly biased.
I don't think that Tuhoe should be involved in choosing any members of a review panel any more than the police should be. Independent reviews should be independent from both sides.
I've also managed to disprove his point that "such people would never claim that Pakeha would be similarly biased" in one fell swoop. :)
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One of my regrets about the demise of Wayne Mapp from his role as 'Spokesman for the Eradication of Political Correctness' is that I never got around to sending him a copy of Saville's 'The Gay Dolphin Adventure'. I think it would have really spoken to Wayne.
There's a song which Tenacious D covered, but it was originally written by some Canadians called Corky and the Juice Pigs, called 'Eskimo' (lyrics: I'm the only gay Eskimo in my tribe) youtube for those who want to see
Because every good book should have music to go with it.
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Tracy Watkins wrote a good piece in the Dom this morning. Some of the meaty bits:
We are now in the worst of all worlds. The solicitor-general, in ruling that the police evidence did not meet a high enough threshold to prove terrorism charges, has, in effect, ensured that some of that evidence may never be aired. Yet, in the same breath, he has sought to reassure us that police had every right to act in the face of some "very disturbing" activities.
Bad law may be the culprit as he suggests, but we may never know.
The consequence of his finding is that the public is now in limbo. It simply does not have enough information to either trust that the police acted within the public interest against a very real terrorist threat, or discount some of the more extreme claims that are being made about the motives of the police (and, by extension, the State).
(She's been reading my PAS posts!)
Crown Law is refusing even to comment on whether it or Dr Collins were consulted before police launched their – it now turns out – highly risky raids. The Sunday Star-Times yesterday reported that it had been kept in the loop – which is what The Dominion Post also understands
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If Crown Law, and-or Dr Collins, were consulted by police then surely there is nothing to stop them saying so. There is a genuine public interest in knowing whether the police charged recklessly into uncharted territory, or whether they only proceeded after being comforted by assurances that they were on the right track.
Police Commissioner Howard Broad appears to have been of the view that he had those assurances. What he has confirmed is that crown prosecutors (who act under the umbrella of Crown Law) were consulted.
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Secrecy has increasingly become the fallback position of government agencies. Banks of PR people stand between public service chief executives and the media, and Official Information Act requests are routinely given lip service. But there should be an outcry if the default position prevails in this instance. The stakes are too high.
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Not really related to the whole terrorist thing, but something nice I saw that I'm sharing today.
My son and I took our dog out to Aramoana Beach on Sunday morning. There was an installation near the entrance to the beach of driftwood and flowers. I presume it was a response to the showing of 'Out of the Blue' the night before.
It was a nice wee tribute to the sorrow of the township. I took a photo.