October 2009

Labour has a problem. That problem is a choice. A Catch-22. They need to choose between having a lying Rick Barker in parliament or an honest Judith Tizard. This is why no Labour MP will go for the foreseeable future, unless Goff or perhaps the head EPMU wing of the Labour Party can convince Judith to step aside. heads though should roll. Barkers, for lying, plus his involvement as a flatmate and companion of Bill Liu, Darren Hughes for defending the lying, the cover up and as the DomPost editorial says being an “apologist for indefensible behaviour on the part of his colleagues”.

The Rick Barker problem has just got worse for them too. It seems that everybody hates Labour, including the Marketing Research Society, for lying about polling. Read this press release and look at the language used. I can’t leave anything out it is so good.

STATEMENT:

The Market Research Society of New Zealand and The Association of Market Research Organisations have today expressed their extreme concern for the unethical and misleading activities of the New Zealand Labour Party.

The Labour Party’s use of non-operational company’s name deceived those members of the New Zealand public who were contacted for the Labour Party’s interviewing. This practice broke several of the rules that are followed by most market research companies regardless of their country.

President of the Market Research Society of New Zealand (MRSNZ), Horst Feldhaeuser, says that:

“We are dismayed that the Labour Party broke so many rules concerning ethical behaviour, misleading respondents, abusing the trust of respondents and making false statements about the research organisation conducting the research.”

Feldhaeuser also states that:
“The Labour Party’s actions risk increasing the cost of conducting bona fide market research in New Zealand. Commercial businesses and public sector organisations alike invest well over a hundred million dollars each year into market research, and if the public becomes more reluctant to answer surveys because they cannot trust the interviewers who call them up, then costs will increase.”

Colin Yee, Chairman of the Association of Market Research Organisations (AMRO), says that:
“If any of our members were caught acting in the way that the Labour Party has done, then tough professional measures would be taken, quite possibly including expulsion from the organisation, job loss and definitely a hit to one’s business reputation.”

Yee adds that the Labour Party could have easily conducted their research themselves without any of the lies that they chose to make:
“We understand that the Labour Party would not have wished to identify themselves before interviewing people because respondents’ answers could then be skewed, but all they had to do was explain to potential respondents that they were a political party surveying the public, and that their identity would be revealed at the end of the interview to avoid skewing the results. This workaround would have provided the Labour Party with unbiased results without misleading the public.”

The Market Research Society of New Zealand and The Association of Market Research Organisations call upon the Labour Party to:
1. Apologise to the New Zealand public for lying to them;
2. Apologise to the hundreds of market researchers working in New Zealand for bringing their profession into disrepute;
3. Outline their future plans for conducting their polling in an ethical, transparent and honest manner.

Finally, Horst Feldhaeuser has extended an invitation to the Labour Party MP Rick Barker who ran the poll in question:
“Mr Barker is welcome to join the Market Research Society of New Zealand in order to improve his knowledge of market research and ethical polling. We run regular educational events for our members and it would be good to see Mr Barker attending so that he can conduct his future surveys with a greater degree of professionalism”

David Parker in a voice reminiscent of Bill Rowling, is at high dudgeon that National “could” have received donations from insurance companies. Could’ve? Might’ve? Who knows? Who cares?

Labour on the other DID receive substantial donations from Unions. Not only in cash but also in time especially from the workers arm of the Labour party the EPMU…or is the Labour Party the Political arm of the EPMU, hard to tell these days.

David Parker has merely highlighted the rank hypocrisy of Labour and added to an already abysmal week for them.

What is it with these Labour mayors that they have to get into speaking on behalf of the police when something awful happens in their patch.

What on earth was Len Brown being interviewed for on ZB this morning, when it is a police matter.

He didn’t really seem to know anything anyway. Perhaps he could have explained why his city is the crime capital of New Zealand and is so bad that National has had to pump 300 extra police into the area.

It is bizarre and totally inappropriate that a Mayor should get involved in this way in a police investigation.

Just like Cun(t)liffe whingeing on about the TVNZ promo with Bill English, well in my book, it’s the same thing with Bob Harvey and Len Brown, putting themselves out there just to get publicity for their cause celebre. Shameless ambulance chasers the lot of them.

Labour and David Cun(t)liffe should just shut up. Need I remind them about the working for families bus shelter ads they spent millions on.

Mr Cunliffe: “This promo looks and sounds like a party political broadcast and a self-promotion rather than a preview of what purports to be a serious programme.”

The man with the silent T in his name has got this completely wrong. There is no way in the world that National would ever let a plonker like Mr Twentyone Percent do a party political broadcast as we could easily lose 10% in the polls instantly, and National care about retaining power. Secondly, in case the plonker hasn’t noticed National doesn’t need to do party political broadcasts they are sitting at around 60% in the polls and his pary is hovering just aobe the low 20′s.

It’s a pity someone unbiased and free thinking like Hone couldn’t have mentioned this.

sent in by a loyal reader

Halloween-at-Murder-Burger

As I have blogged regularly Chrisco in Australia and in New Zealand appears to be in serious trouble. both of their websites have placeholders only and the only information you can get on them online is from that single placeholder page.

Australia’s page says the new catalogs and website will be due out on 26 October 2009. Today is the 27th and there is no change.

If I was a Chrisco customer I’d be ringing them for some answers real quick. Otherwise their Christmas of almost expired goods may well be worst than that as in nothing whatsoever.

Time for Richard Bradley to front, speech impediment or no speech impediment, someone at Chrisco must start talking and talking soon otherwise there may well be a lot over very angry, poor people raiding Coatesville and upsetting the lovely couple currently renting the place while Richard tries to find a buyer.

With the imminent resignation of Sue Bradford from Parliament, there ought to be much rejoicing among the forces of conservatism and the centre-right that the biggest, baddest social engineer of modern New Zealand is going.

Unfortunately, she’s now threatening to come back to politics by standing as a councillor for the new Auckland supercity.  Even worse than that, there are some serious talks to bring in Sue Bradford as the deputy for Brown.

Of course, the role of deputy is a serious one under the Auckland Council given the increased Mayoral powers, the budget and the size of Auckland. But it’s even more serious when you consider the likelihood of her becoming the actual Mayor with Len Brown’s bad heart condition.
[quote]
Everyone knows how Len Brown was probably jump started in order to save his life when he collapsed with a massive heart attack in mid 2008. It’s also well known he spent some weeks fighting for his life, with complications in his heart bypass, meaning he had to be opened up twice under general anaesthetic to save his life. In total, Brown had six (SIX!) heart valves replaced under a double-triple bypass due to massive blocking, and after the first op, one of the valves then ripped open again requiring another operation.

Brown had the last rites read, such was his outlook.

So, having established the clear state of Brown’s lack of health, there is a very real possibility that under a high pressure job like the Auckland Mayoralty, Brown would suffer significant stress, particularly with the massive task of bringing the old councils together.

Sue Bradford would be literally one heartbeat away from the Auckland Mayoralty. Parliament’s most divisive and militant operator, the social-engineer who knew better than 87% of New Zealand’s families, would be in charge of all Auckland.

And that’s a risk that no right thinking person in Auckland would want to consider.

hat tip boing boing (click for full size image)

Left vs Right

Since Rick barker is in the news again it is timely to re-visit the Bill Liu case.

For those not familiar with interesting story Bill Liu is also known as Yong Ming Yan, Yang Liu and William Yan. He duped numerous MPs into supporting his application for NZ Citizenship including Dover Samuels, Rick Barker, Shane Jones, Chris Carter and Pansy Wong.

He was arrested in June 2009 and is currently facing 12 charges relating to false declarations on his immigration papers, having false passports and using deception to gain citizenship.

Via the Whaleoil tipline some more interesting information has come to light. But first a little reminder of how all those Labour MPs are linked to Bill Liu.

He was granted citizenship in a VIP ceremony in Wellington last year after lobbying from former Labour MP Dover Samuels, who regards him as a close friend.

Rick Barker, the then Internal Affairs Minister charged with approving citizenship applications, was also on the list of politicians who knew Yan. Because of this, he passed the file to another minister, Shane Jones.

Mr Jones overruled Internal Affairs advice that Liu – now Yan – did not meet character requirements and granted him citizenship.

These guys aren’t talking and the reason why they aren’t talking is that contrary to the sanitised official and labour Party that Bill Liu donated $5000 to Labour the real sums involved are far greater than that. Along with further information obtained the via the tipline may have revealed the real reason behind the pathological pursuit of a New Zealand passport.

Bill Liu was essentially trapped in New Zealand after Chinese officials canceled his travel documents, but like most Chinese businessmen based out of Hong Kong they have an official wife and a mainland mistress. the mainland mistress though can’t travel so there is trade in obtaining passports for themselves, but more importantly for their Mainland Chinese mistresses so they can travel with them.

As Investigate magazine at the time showed, Bill Liu was a man without an home and so he set about trying and ultimately succeeding in buying a New Zealand passport. The problem lies though with the sums involved and the heavy involvement of many Labour MPs and Shane Te Pou, a Labour party activist.

From TGIF we learn that Shane Te Pou, another person who also uses another name, Shane Phillips;

Tonight, TGIF Edition can also reveal that one of Yongming’s former associates in this country – Shane Phillips – was a Labour Party campaign manager, and his brother Daniel Phillips works in the office of Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones – the man who gave ‘Bill Liu’ citizenship against the recommendations of officials who’d investigated his background.

All the information to date suggests that Shane Te Pou was the facilitator of Bill Liu’s approach to obtaining a New Zealand passport. He was also the bagman collecting the money for the Labour Party. Now this is where it gets real interesting and starts causing real problems for Dover Samuels, Chris Carter and in particular for Rick Barker and definitely for Shane Jones.

My informant tells me that the sums involved are far greater than a couple of donations of $5000 to various MP’s and in fact total around around $500,000 spread out over several years and laundered to the Labour Party via Shane Te Pou.

My informant also very specific about several locations and meeting including a birthday party where Mr Liu got very agitated about how much money he had paid over and why hadn’t his applications been approved yet. All of these agitated meetings and demands were performed in front of numerous witnesses.

Rick Barker was one of the first to sniff a rat but not before he had stayed several times in Bill Liu’s luxury Metropolis apartment. Barker at the time was the Minister of Internal Affairs and he was sticking with his officials and the Immigration Minister’s offical decisions that Bill Liu was a significant risk. Helen Clark changed the game first though with a ministerial shuffle.

Shane Jones was now the key player being the Associate Immigration Minister and it was him that approved Bill Liu’s passport and NZ Citizenship.

There is supposed to be an inquiry into all this through immigration but we are yet to hear th results of that. But a second informant has told me that $500,000 is quite cheap for the trade in passports and though Bill Liu thought he had paid quite enough for his passport the greedy little piggies at the Labour party were playing him. That is when the argument in front of many witnesses occured with Liu demanding his passport pronto.

My second informant tells me for example that St Kitts in the Caribbean sells passports for much more, especially for rich Hong Kong Chinese trying to also get one for the mainland mistress.

St Kitts offers what they call economic citizenship, essentially dual citizenship but at a price far higher than the cheapskates at the Labour Party were trying to sell passports to wanted international money laundering criminals.

The Economic Citizenship Programme for St. Kitts and Nevis was established in 1984 and provides the following benefits :-
•    Citizenship for life, for applicant and all eligible family members.
•    Dual Citizenship is permitted, without the requirement to notify the applicants home country, and without any need for the applicant to reside in St. Kitts/Nevis.
•    Passports will be issued to the applicant an all eligible family members, and may be easily renewed.
•    Visa-Free Travel to approximately 80 countries including :- Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and most British commonwealth countries. When a visa is required, they are also relatively easy to obtain.
•    Full Residency Status and the right to work in St. Kitts/Nevis
•    Tax Free Status on foreign income, capital gains, gift, wealth and inheritance tax
Requirements
An application requires a non-refundable cash payment of US$35,000 for a single applicant plus US$15,000 for each dependent, plus a US$2,000 fee for a background check on any person included in the application, who is over 18 years of age.
In addition to the above fees are the associated legal fees which will vary depending on the number of persons included in the application, but are usually in the region of US$15,000.
Additionally, the applicant must invest a minimum of US$350,000 in government designated real estate, among which there are some excellent real estate developments. Please note that the investment required was increased by the government from the old level of US$250,000 in late 2006.  The total financial cost of economic citizenship for a single person in St. Kitts is therefore approx US$400,000.

So as you can see the $500,000 that Bill Liu had coughed to Labour was far cheaper than the other favoured passport of the rich and famous Chinese looking for a passport for their mainland mistresses.

This all makes the case of Bill Liu very, very interesting. Chasing a Kiwi passports so he can travel and probably also trying to get one for his mainland mistress, on the run from the Chinese government for money laundering a at the same time over 4 years coughing via Shane Te Pou around $500,000 to the Labour Party.

There are many, many questions that remain unanswered after all this time and now with Rick Barker in trouble again I think it is time that He and Shane Jones and  Chris Carter start telling the truth for just once in their miserable corrupt little lives.

hat tip Snowflakes in Hell

There is an Antique Whaling harpoon cannon for sale.

You too can now own your own whaling harpoon. I’m not even sure what the legalities are. I would imagine it’s a destructive device. It’s also in Norway. It’s not impossible to get a destructive device imported, but I can’t imagine how much paperwork you’d have to do to get this into the country, and in your legal possession.

Taking collection now….must have, must get.