COMPLAINTS of “widespread police involvement” in local body electioneering in Manurewa and Papakura are being investigated by the police and the Independent Police Conduct Authority.
Inquiries into photos and comments by a police cadet and 11 sworn officers in Manurewa Action Team and Papakura First campaign tabloids have been sparked by complaints from incoming local board members Colleen Brown and Caroline Conroy.
The pair say the repeated mention of serving officers – including comments by district police chief Mike Bush – was a “calculated campaign” by the two political tickets to give the impression they were endorsed by the police.
“Implicitly or explicitly that is the story being sold to the public,” Mrs Brown says. “It’s use of the police brand.”
She and Ms Conroy believe that breaches the law requiring police to be impartial and neutral in elections and the police code of conduct.
“It’s like you’ve got the police endorsing one political party,” Mrs Brown says.
“Come the next general election are we going to see the police out with the National Party?”
UPDATE: The police officer in the photo is Allan Shearer, he is Labour MP David Shearer’s brother.
Was she trying to give the impression that implicitly or explicitly that she was endorsed by the Police? I think the police can safely put that complaint in the bin now.
Colleen Brown and her team with serving Police Officers
However that supposes that the dreamers at Transparency International actually left their offices in Wellington. It is farcical that they constantly give New Zealand a corruption rating so high. one wonders how they measure it or if they ever do actually leave their office.
I can point to numerous daily occurrences of corruption. The person who prepared that report must have his/her head in the sand. Its rife. The only problem is that most are so good at it, that they legalise what they are doing. The others have their tracks covered for them and it all gets swept under the carpet before the proverbial hits the fan. Try as I may no one wants to know or listen.
Here are but a few examples;
A recent tender proffered by a Government department with a specification for an item that is so tight that only one product int he world can actually meet that criteria. A quick search of the authorised agent for that product shows that the licence is held by a man and his wife with a 100 shares between them living on a boutique vineyard in Nelson. They are the sole representation and the contract is going to be for around USD$5.5 million. They have no infrastructure, no support systems or ability to support the product which is highly technical.
Another tender being let by the same organisation has just let it to a company that doesn’t and can’t manufacture one of the core components of the tender. This is a consumable item that will be let for 5 years and worth again several million dollars over the lifetime of the contract.
I blogged about corruption at ACC, that has largely been swept under the carpet but is still going on. Just slightly different players.
Then there is the major government organisation that has an essential piece of equipment supplied by a company in Brisbane, with zero representation in New Zealand, again like above, no support, no technical expertise.
How about the LAV purchase? If there wasn’t corruption involved with that process then I’m a screaming poof.
Winston Peters and NZ First joining Labour in nicking hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers money, denying they did it, when caught, lying about it, then refusing to pay it back in the case of NZ First, and then also lying about their donations, breaching electoral law and lying to a parliamentary Privileges Committee and walking away scot-free. Corruption? Of course it was.
Then there is the case of the insolvency specialist that has a penchant for one particular type of business, just so happens to end up owning the new holding companies for those businesses which have a miraculous turn-around in turnover with no discernable movement in stock levels. Apparently the secondary property development market is booming.
And how about all the Toyota vans being stolen and having their engines ripped out on the quiet and shipped off to parts sandy.
I could go on and on and on about the corruption in New Zealand, but Transparency International doesn’t want to know, and neither does anyone else. I’ve come to the conclusion that those who should care are in on the lark themselves.
Prime Minister John Key announced tonight that The Hobbit movies – a $670m project – will be made in New Zealand.
Government ministers – including Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee and Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Chris Finlayson – and Warner Bros executives have been locked in negotiations all day.
Mr Key made the announcement at a press conference this evening. Tomorrow morning he is due to leave for Vietnam for the East Asia Summit.
“I am delighted we have achieved this result, said Mr Key. “Making the two Hobbit movies here will not only safeguard work for thousands of New Zealanders, but it will also follow the success of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy in once again promoting NZ on the world stage.”
The Government will introduce legislation tomorrow to clarify the distinction between independent contractors and employees as it relates to the film industry only.
“The industrial issues that have arisen in the past several weeks have highlighted a significant set of concerns for the way in which the international film industry operates,” Mr Key said.
“We will be moving to ensure that New Zealand law in this area is settled to give film producers like Warner Bros the confidence they need to produce their movies in this country.
“This will guarantee the movies are made in New Zealand,” he said.
Tax rebates will also be changed for Warner Bros, which will mean up to an extra US$7.5m per movie for Warner Bros, subject to the success of the movies.
Now that all sounds great but I have a few questions. I doubt we will get any answers.
If it is good for the film industry to have legal issues surrounding contractors v. employees sorted then why isn’t it a good idea to do the same for all industries?
Surely all of our industry can benefit fromt he same clarity?
If it is a good idea for tax rebates to encourage the film industry then why not for any other industry that stands to earn New Zealand similar amounts?
Why not tax rebates for all industry?
The film industry does not stand alone, it uses almost every other industry to provide their product, how come those industries don’t get tax breaks or employment contract law sorted for them?
Winston Peters got massive tax breaks for the bloodstock industry on the premise that it too was vital for New Zealand, how come other industries which employ far more people than both the film industry and the bloodstock industry arem\n’t treated the same?
Next time a union busy body mentions anything they should be shouted down with three simple words….no…not “Get f*cked loser”…”Remember The Hobbit”.
The CTU and the union pals across the Tasman very nearly de-railed this movie. Watch now though as Labour jumps on the band wagon to try and get some reflected glory despite their utter silence through-out the whole issue.
I had to go to Wellington for the weekend. I was looking at fares and Air New Zealand was definitely cashing in on the long weekend and Jetstar was reasonably cheap. Normally i’d drive, for a couple of reasons, one being I like the solitude and thinking time of driving, and secondly it really isn’t any dearer except in time.
I didn’t want to drive during this weekend though because it was a long weekend and dealing with fools in every town at both ends of the weekend didn’t really appeal. So flying it was. I couldn’t really afford Air New Zealand so decided, rahter poorly it turns out to fly Jetstar.
Surely all the bad reports could all be true? Surely they can’t be all that bad?
Well turns out they are, and worse.
Things started off ok, I got a lift from a mate to the airport. He drives a 545i so at least that was comfortable. We decided to use the “fantastic” new motorway that was supposed to speed up trips to the airport and that is where the weekend of evil began.
All was fine, following the brand new signs showing the way to the airport…..slight problem the exits, both of them to get off the motorway so you can go down Puhinui Road to the airport are closed, and blocked off with big concrete barriers. The alternative is to carry on and drive approximately 5kms around South Auckland to get to the airport, with all the ensuing traffic, lights, and South Auckland drivers. What was a trip that had plenty of time was now cutting it fine to make the cut-off, and now we ran into road works and every fricking red light known to man.
I turned up 20 minutes before the flight was due to leave. No dice. The plane hadn’t even completed boarding, I know this because I could see the poor passengers still shuffling through security. There was no one at the counter but me and still they wouldn’t give me a boarding pass. Flight closed was the answer. Flight closed was the answer no matter how polite or rude I became. I started polite but got ruder when the fees started coming.
But wait….for just $90 I can go on the wait list for the flight at 1830….in 4 hours time! $90 dollars to maybe get a flight…but what choice do I have…so I pay and wait, and wait and wait…I watch the flight that I could soi easily have been on leave and then wait for 4 hours doing nothing but twiddling my thumbs.
I finally get on the flight and get to Wellington. Surely my flight experience with Jetstar can’t get any worse.
Oh but it can.
I was due to fly home yesterday at 1530. At lunch time I get a txt from jetstar…how nice…the flight is delayed…no reason, just delayed…until 1830! Three hours after it was supposed to leave.
This meant two things. I now had to waste another 3 hours because of Jetstar and I had to spend those additional hours in The Penguins office!! With the Penguin!!
So…I get to the airport thinking this can’t get any worse, except of course this is Jetstar, so yes it can. Their check in kiosks aren’t working, and so I go to the counter.
I ask the chappie there if he can refund me $90. He asks me why?
So I explain, well, when I was slightly late for my flight in Auckland to get to this stinking hole of a city you c*nts charged me $90 to catch a later flight. Today I was ready to fly at the allotted time but it was Jetstar that was late and given they charged me for being late I thought it only fair that I now charge them for being late and since $90 was my charge I thought I’d reciprocate even though my charge out rate is substantially higher than that. He was not amused and neither was his supervisor. They begrudgingly issued me with a boarding pass and told me to basically piss off.
I thought about this post all day, and I know, I should never had taken Jetstar but I’ve always been one to try something before knocking it. So I tried Jetstar, and yep the reports are true, they suck. They suck really badly. I’m of a mind to send them an invoice for 7 hours of wasted time.
This could create an upset. Union loyalists upset at the parachuting in of Kris Fa’afoi could easily chuck enough votes Matt’s way to make a big dent in Labour’s majority.
Will it be enough? Probably not.
Matt at least has true left wing credentials and for that reason alone the workers of Mana should support him. (No equivocating here with endorsements)
Meanwhile I’m not sure the Labour spin-weasels were thinking too hard with Kris Fa’afoi’s signs.
Working for Mana?
Doesn’t he have any Mana and is that why he is working for it?
1.(noun) extended kinship group, tribe, nation, people, nationality, race – often refers to a large group of people descended from a common ancestor. 2.(noun) strength, bone.
also;
iwi
1.(acronym) I Want It
Modern usage:
While most iwi struggle financially, despite billions in treaty settlements, Â the Maori elite live life on the large.
Iwi are not reaping the benefits of treaty settlements.
The treaty industry has nurtured a culture of IWI (I Want It)
Simon “FIGJAM” Power wants to regulate the internet. He also wants tho clarify how “legitimate media” access information about name suppression orders.
Yet constantly we see the “legitimate media” breaching orders and always without sanction. Now I’m not moaning about the descent of the law upon my head for breaching name suppression, far from it. But what I am complaining about is the uneven application of the law.
Just recently one of the most blatant breaches of name suppression was perpetrated by TVNZ in the Daljit Singh case, Guyon Espiner also egregiously breached suppression orders in pursuing David Garrett. So far neither the repeaters concerned nor TVNZ as an organisation has been charged.
Yet today there is a photo spread all across the internet and presumably the dead tree press of the victim in this same case. According to Judge Harvey I risk being charged yet again just by providing a link to th Herlad story as that provides a “piece of the puzzle”.
Clearly the “legitimate media” haven’t read the draconian judgement of Judge Harvey. He will be disappointed, it took him three weeks and 70 pages to write.
Of course the contention that naming a victim will lead to the identification of the guilty is farcical. In this case even more so. We now know who the victim is but only those in the small community or family members will know who the guilty child is. They would know anyway…pretty hard to miss a shooting and killing of a 12 year old kid in a small town.
Once again the farce of name suppression is displayed for us all. Once again the inconsistency of the law is exposed and once again we see the “legitimate media” are actually “illegitimate”. At least bloggers are honest about our position.
This nation really needs to stop keep secrets in our courts.
The “death free” Queens Birthday weekend had terrible weather conditions, and as a result there were less accidents because people tended to drive to the conditions, or didn’t drive at all. In other words the weather was the educating and common sense factor, not the vaunted crack down on the policing tolerance of the speed limit.
From what I can see of the deaths in the weekend they were not merely as a result of speed, but of poor driving and poor vehicle control and knowledge.
By definition every motor accident is a result of speed, as two stationary vehicle will not hit each other or anything else.
The battle that needs to be fought is the poor standard of driving, not a battle against exceeding an arbitrary speed limit.
In France or Germany a piece of straight motorway is safe at 130 kph, while a similar straight piece of road in NZ is unsafe at 130kph. How does that work?
Is a French or German driver safer at 130 than a Kiwi? Doubtless the answer is yes, because Kiwi’s can’t drive. It is too easy to get a licence, and the Police are only interested in revenue rather than education.
The only thing that has reduced road deaths in recent years is the improvement in vehicle and road engineering. The Police speed campaign can not lay claim to any gains, as has been clearly demonstrated this past weekend.
Eight people killed on the roads over one long weekend is a tragedy.
The tragedy of this weekend’s road toll is that police were led to pursue a flawed traffic policing policy this holiday weekend on the basis of believing their own headlines.
They were put off by the statistical anomaly of Queens Birthday weekend, when a weekend with no deaths on the roads followed the announcement for that weekend of a traffic policing policy of “zero tolerance” for speed. (A policy that also generated a huge uptick in revenue.)
All the authorities trumpeted that the policy caused the triumph with the road toll. They were so certain they re-imposed the policy this weekend, and re-ran all the ads and notices warning motorists to watch out for policemen watching them.
But they forgot that correlation is not causality.
Trying to convince drivers that speed is everything—that driving a few kph over the speed limit is going to kill us all—and convinced themselves by their own publicity, they succeeded only in fooling themselves, and being surprised this morning at a number they thought they had no right to expect.
Eight people killed is a tragedy. Perhaps some of those drivers might not have died if police over the weekend had focussed on dangerous driving instead of sitting on their bums to collect revenue from motorists driving a few kph over the speed limit.
A serious re-think over the focus on speed alone needs to be done in PNHQ. Focusing on speed fails the logic test, especially on a weekend where the weather was good and the roads were dry.
Accidents do happen and for a whole lot of reasons, not all of them are because of speed. The Police need to realise this, unless of course their big focus is for revenue reasons rather than for safety reasons.
It also stands to reason that there is an inherent number of deaths that will always be associated with roading and driving. We must surely be approaching that number of annualised roading deaths now, meaning that spending millions advertising to stop more deaths will do nothing. In fact the case can be argued that non-governmental initiatives like side intrusion beams, air-bags, collapsible steering columns, better suspension, better roading technologies and crumple zones have done more to alleviate road deaths than any government advertising campaigns.
Peter Cresswell raising an interesting point about the thinking of the Police. That if “the statistical anomaly of Queens Birthday weekend, when a weekend with no deaths on the roads followed the announcement for that weekend of a traffic policing policy of “zero tolerance” for speed is correct” then now the reverse must be true, that putting more Police out on the roads actually caused more accidents.
“Who the Labour Party encourages or discourages back into Parliament is a matter for them. Frankly, I don’t want any of them on their list coming in.” — John Key
I had to go to Wellington for the weekend. I was looking at fares and Air New Zealand was definitely cashing in on the long weekend and Jetstar was reasonably cheap. Normally i’d drive, for a couple of reasons, one being I like the solitude and thinking time of driving, and secondly it really isn’t any dearer except in time.
