Human Rights Commission

It looks like Crusher may move on the Race Relations Conciliator position:

Moves are afoot to abolish the title of race relations commissioner, which minority groups and critics say could downgrade the position’s importance.

An amendment to the Human Rights Act introduced to Parliament late last year would abolish the title, although the duties would still be done by a human rights commissioner.

The race relations commissioner has been part of the Human Rights Commission since 2002. Current Commissioner Joris de Bres, whose term ends in September, says he will oppose the change when submissions are called for.

“I advised the minister at the time that I felt it would reduce the visibility of the office and also reduce its independence.”

At present, he said, the commissioner acted jointly with, but was not subject to, the chief human rights commissioner’s direction. “And that is specifically changed in the amendment.”

He believed the change would be seen by many minority communities “as a downgrading of the position”.

Whining to the Minister will be a waste of time. She brooks no nonsense with namby-pamby liberalism.

Most New Zealanders would be hard pressed to give a single reason to retain the office.

The Human Rights Commission is becoming a joke. David Fisher writes in the Herald on Sunday about a bizarre case of a crim’s missus wanting to be a Corrections worker in the same prison as her husband is jailed and somehow when she doesn’t get the job it is a breach of her Human Rights.

A woman has been given the go-ahead to sue the corrections department for refusing to employ her as a guard in the prison in which her husband was remanded.

Lydia Butcher wanted to work at the Northland Region Corrections Facility, a prison at Ngawha Springs near Kaikohe.

But her husband of 12 years, 38-year-old Carl Butcher, was sent there on remand for firearms and assault charges. When Department of Corrections bosses found out, they refused to hire her, saying she should have told them.

The case is headed for the Human Rights Review Tribunal after mediation over the issue failed. Robert Hesketh, the Director of Human Rights Proceedings, said the case was going ahead. “We are her lawyers,” he added.

So it is worse, she neglected to tell Corrections on her job application that her husband was banged up. I note that we have comment from one Robert Hesketh. I thought that name was familiar so took a little wander through Google. oh right, it’s that Robert Hesketh, the convicted fraudster ex-Judge.

In January 1997 Judge Robert Hesketh appeared before a district court, and pleaded guilty to eight charges of fraud. The charges related to $815 worth of false accommodation and travel expense claims while employed as a judge in the Whangarei District Court. Hesketh repaid the money before being fined $8,000 and ordered to pay $2,000 costs.

Right, so we now have a convicted fraudster serving on the Human Rights Tribunal taking a case on behalf of a woman whose husband is a convicted armed offender, all because she didn’t get a job at the same prison as her husband.

It is understood the foundation of the case against the department is that Lydia Butcher should not be discriminated against because of her husband’s criminal behaviour.

What next? The only thing that could make this more farcical is if she has convictions that haven’t been disclosed as well.

It is joke cases like this that makes people wonder if we shouldn’t just disband the Human Rights Commission forthwith.

TVNZ must be real short of cash. They have resorted to running Phil Goff’s lines for them and even using their supplied statistics.

How sad must TVNZ be that they have to use numbers made up by the Labour Party researxh unit in orer to present the news?

Very sad. TVNZ plumbs a new low.

Crunching the numbers, my ass! Crunching and running Labour’s numbers. Like they are believeable, the left the country with 10 years of deficits and told us all they were prudent financial managers.

Why couldn’t they get their own figure from Statistics NZ or Census data?

Goff: Pay dole even if partner still working – Pressure on the Government to offer more help to the families of the recently unemployed is intensifying, with the Labour Party rewriting policy to give more generous assistance to wage and salary earners made redundant as a result… [NZ Herald Politics]

Phil Goff’s mad ramblings are becoming increasingly like a Mad Magazine….oh wait!

His latest incredibly stupid idea is to give the dole to people even if their partner is still working. The big lie in all of this is how precisely does Labour expect to pay for this when they left this country with a legacy of a decade of deficits.

It is sheer insanity to continue borrowing and hoping like Labour suggests.

One thing is clear though. Phil Goff is obviously the Alfred E. neuman of New Zealand politics.

Chris Trotter is angry. He’s mad as hell and he is blogging about it.

LISTENING to Radio New Zealand-National’s “Focus on Politics” yesterday evening, I was incensed and depressed, but I can’t honestly say surprised, to hear Phil Goff dismiss Labour’s founding objective – “the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange” as “nineteenth century history.”

It got worse, with Phil adding ideological insult to historical injury by declaring that the modern Labour Party believed “a well-functioning market system is the most effective and efficient way of organising an economy”. Yes, he was willing to “recognise market failure”, but only to the extent of ensuring “an adequate level of regulation”.

As the indignant hum of Mickey Savage spinning in his grave grew louder, Phil then proceeded to define Labour’s twenty-first century mission as being all about “how you make a modern capitalist system work more effectively, and work in favour of all of the citizens of a country – and not just the chosen few, the elite at the top.”

Phil Goff had better watch out. The left is mobilising. It is mobilising to get Goff and this blog post is the signal that all is not well within Labour’s ranks.

Phil Goff, will be carryng on with a Alfred E. Neuman-esqe demeanour showing he cares not a jot for un-reconstitued pinkos like trotter calling for his head.

Even today, the Party’s constitution declares, as one of its foundation principles: “Co-operation, rather than competition, should be the main governing factor in economic relations, in order that a just distribution of wealth can be ensured.” And among its objectives one can still read of Labour’s determination: “To ensure the just distribution of the production and services of the nation for the benefit of all the people.”, and “To educate the public in the principles and objectives of democratic socialism and economic and social co-operation.”

While these principles and objectives remain firmly enshrined in the Labour Party Constitution, it ill-behoves its leader to tell Radio New Zealand-National’s political editor, Brent Edwards, that they amount to nothing more than “nineteenth century history”.

And his attack doesn’t end there;

I would also take issue with Phil’s description of contemporary capitalism as “the most effective and efficient way of organising an economy”. Leaving aside the recent massive failures of capitalist institutions across the globe, it is extremely difficult to see anything remotely “effective” or “efficient” about an economic system which constantly drives millions of human-beings into both relative and absolute poverty; contributes massively to social and racial polarisation across the globe; trashes the planet’s fragile ecology, and brings closer with every passing day the prospect of catastrophic climate change.

That Phil apparently believes it is possible to make such a system “work more effectively [for] all the citizens of a country and not just the chosen few – the elites at the top” tells me that he fundamentally misunderstands the market system he claims to support.

Wow, he basically just called Phil Goff a moron.

One thing about Chris Trotter, he wears his socialism proudly upon his sleeve, and doesn’t hide it all.

A capitalist economy, unmodified by the ameliorating reforms of a politically organised working class, will always fail to deliver for the overwhelming majority of the population. That’s because capitalism is intended to advantage the few at the expense of the many, and can only lead to the political domination of society by “elites at the top”.

To guarantee that the economy works more effectively for the majority, it is necessary to challenge the idea that private ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange leads to a fair and equitable society. It has been Labour’s historical mission to lead that challenge, and to play a decisive role in the struggle against capitalist ideology.

The history of the past century has made me extremely wary of mounting that challenge primarily by the application of political violence and repression. My preference is for the principled and peaceful promotion of social-democratic ideas throughout the population – for making socialists of conviction rather than socialists by compulsion. Certainly, that means that the journey will be slow, and that there will be occasional reverses, but it most emphatically does not mean that we can ever afford to give up the challenge; put an end to the journey.

And that is where Phil Goff is in deep, deep trouble from within the ranks of Labour. He actually doesn’t believe in all that and the people Helen Clark recruited, molded and nutured in politics all do. Chris Trotter is simply voicing their frustrations and if Trotter is saying this out loud then as they say there is  “trouble at mill”.

If it is your view, Phil, that the quest for democratic socialism may be dismissed as something belonging to “nineteenth century history” then I say “The hell with you!”

And, to the members of the NZ Labour Party I say: “Find yourselves a new leader.”

There it is, a call for the tumbrils, and for Phil Goff to be riding them to the scaffold.

(Warning Offensive images)

Silly me, I thought there was a by-election a some time ago.

Not accordng to the Labour Party who spent over $500,000 keeping Mt Albert red.

Perhaps Mr Shearer is packing up his house in Amman. BTW has anyone seen that woman?

UPDATE: Labour has quickly moved to remove Helen Clark and Michael Cullen’s profiles. Still no David Shearer though.

Unlike the pinko DPF I think the Auckland Transitional Authority are stark, raving bonkers having Laila Harre as the cat in charge of the canaries. It isn’t a smart move it is in fact dumb.

Perhaps Rodney Hide might like to consider his speech in 2000 when Labour and the Alliance were foisted the Employment Relations Act upon us all.

Taken from Hansard

RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ): I do have some questions and the Chairman knows that I have been seeking the call every time with Mr Willie Jackson.

I have been a bit disappointed that the Labour Government members have not been prepared to take the call and speak, particularly the members, and we have had only Willie Jackson. I hope that Willie Jackson will take a call. He made the point that when he was a union leader, so-called, when workers went out on strike he would take no pay.

My question to Willie Jackson is when workers go out on strike now because of this legislation, will he, as an MP, take no pay? Would he be prepared to live his principles while he is a parliamentarian? What we are seeing with Part 8 is the return of the strike as a lethal weapon into industrial relations in New Zealand. I think it is fitting that the Associate Minister of Labour, Laila Harré, should be in the chair because we well know her views. This is the woman who said to the Labour Party in 1987 that Joseph Stalin achieved more in 20 years than the West achieved in 200 years. This woman has never recanted from that view — not once. She has never said that what she thought of Stalin achieving in 20 years what the West achieved in 200 years was wrong. She still believes it to this day, and here she is seeing this legislation, inspired by Karl Marx, as I said in my earlier speech, being inflicted –

(The Chairman follows)

RODNEY HIDE: I am sure, and I certainly did not. I was just reporting that Laila Harré said that Stalin achieved in 20 years what it took the West 200 years to achieve. It is in the Evening Post. I can bring down her quotation, she has never denied it, and I have brought it up in question time before. I was also pointing out, and I said it in my speech, that this whole idea of bargaining and inequality comes from Karl Marx. The Chairman can read the books and he will understand. There is nothing unparliamentary about being a wee bit historical about where these crazy, mad ideas are coming from that this Government is inflicting on New Zealanders.

[Interruption]

They would have learnt because that was 150 years ago. What we are having here is the return of the lethal strike to the New Zealand workplace. The ACT party is again having a mini-caucus and I am very interested in the comments made by Sue Kedgley on her amendment. I am hoping that Sue Kedgley will take a call to help us and explain the full ramification of her amendment that she has proposed here today because she read out that it covers a mammal, a bird, and essential services. I think that Ms Kedgley said that 3 days’ notice has to be given if it will affect essential services. What we are concerned with here is a mammal; a bird; a reptile; an amphibian; for those on the Government side, that means frogs; a fish, bony or cartilaginous; any octopus, squid, crab, lobster, or crayfish. The member asked what about cockroaches.

Hon. Maurice Williamson: What about Labour Party members?

RODNEY HIDE: I do not know about the Labour Party members. It means any other member of the animal kingdom that is declared from time to time by the Governor-General by Order in Council to be an animal for the purposes of this Act. So I guess that it would be up to the Governor-General to pick up cockroaches.

That’s right….Laila Harre thinks that Stalin achieved more in 20 years than the West took 200 years to achieve. She said that in 1987 in the Evening Post. And to my knowledge she has never resiled from that position.

This is going to end in tears, and Mark Ford will be the one we can blame for this silliness.

Labour puts up dollar-a-vote election funding plan – The Labour Party is renewing its call for state funding of political parties, suggesting a formula that would give the two major parties more than $1.8 million between them. The recommendation is contained in Labour’s submission… [NZ Herald Politics]

A desperate, broke and dying Labour party wants taxpayers to fund their election campaigns.

If they had members they would have donations, and if they whinge about big business not giving, in the US where the cap on presidential campaign donations is $2300 per donor Obama managed to get approximately 1% of the population to give to his campaign.

Small donations, lots of people, because he actually represented people rather than an ideology that only survives in the minds of the liberal elite who need a hand out to perpetuate it.

Labour have seriously underestimated the mood of the people and their tolerance for troughing politicians dipping their greedy little trotters ever deeeper into our pockets. If anything people want to see less taxpayer money, not more, spent on party campaigning.

I hope Labour thinks this is a die in the ditch issue for them.

A fantastic attack on the evils of the Labour Party and Jacinda Ardern is just hopeless. If she is the future of the labour Party then they are rooted. Simon Bridges puts the giggling silly girl in her place over Labour’s constant lies around the Foreshore and Seabed issue.

I have to make myself more public: Phil Goff – At the end of our hour together, Phil Goff said, “Do you think you covered everything you wanted to cover?” I asked if he had covered everything he had wanted to cover. I was genuinely interested in his answer because I would have… [NZ Herald Politics]

There is a mirth inducing interview with Phil Goff in the Herald today. Michele Hewitson is known for making politicians look like plonkers and she again succeeds with Phil Goff.

One thing he is known for is giving horribly long answers to questions, even to questions that haven’t been asked. There is an old joke about him in the Radio New Zealand newsroom which goes like this: Phil Goff has never missed a deadline. “Ha, ha, I haven’t heard that one. I’ve always fronted up to media.”

Oh right, either Phil Goff has an extremely poor memory or he is a liar. Just two weeks ago he refused to front up to Close Up because he would have had to have shared the studio with me.

Phil Goff also dig himself deeper into the honey trap and shows he was complicit in its execution.

We got into a circular argument over why he called the Labour Party woman at the centre of the row “strikingly beautiful”. I want to know why on earth he said it; he can’t see what my problem is. He says it was absolutely relevant because “that was one of the things that made her attractive to Dr Worth”. It still seems to me to be a peculiar thing to say, and I say I can’t imagine Helen Clark saying it. “She might have.”

Right. So to put that in context you need to listen to this audio of an interview with Phil Goff on Radio Live on 12 June.

Phil Goff tells a different story about the first meeting of Neelam Choudary. Goff says he didn’t know that Neelam Choudary’s husband was facing fraud charges yet at this point he would have known that Neelam Choudary was a failed candidate in the Botany selection and he for sure would have known why she was a failed candidate in the Botany selection. That suggests that Phil Goff is being less than completely honest about his knowledge of the background of Neelam Choudary and of her convicted fraudster husband.

Secondly he says that he states the reason he gave the advice to Choudary to take someone with her to the first ever meeting with Richard Worth was because “if a minister wants to have a private meeting and is offering a job to somebody he knows is the opposition’s camp, I thought fairly early on that there might be an ulterior motive, I didn’t have any evidence for that, but I suggested, actually I would have suggested that she took somebody into the meeting with her, unfortunately she didn’t do that, I think that was for her own protection I made that reccommendation”.

That is a fairly long answer and as Michele Hewitson puts it, “One thing he is known for is giving horribly long answers to questions, even to questions that haven’t been asked.”

And that is precisely what Phil Goff has done to his detriment. He inadvertantly tells us that a) he knew about this sting “fairly early on”, b) He talks about a job offer when the alleged affidavit tells us that the job offer was made at this meeting and not before, which leaves c) that knowing Richard Worth’s penchant for sleeping with asian ladies he set up this honey trap.

Phil Goff has lied to the media about his and his offices involvement with Neelam choudary, he has lied to the public. Not one of his stories has ever added up with any one of his previous stories.

I am not convinced at all that any such job offer was necessarily made or if it was that this was the main reason for the meeting. Dr Worth had only just been appointed Minister of Internal Affairs on 19 November and this meeting took place on 26 November. He would probably not even have known at that time what positions were available on the Lotteries Board or Ethnic Affairs Board. Such offers would only have been exploratory anyway as the Minister himself cannot act alone on such matters.

JOIN THE DOTS…Kumar Choudary stayed in the car park because it would not be a good look to have a person who is a Labour Party activist and Goff’s friend (note he didn’t deny that she was his friend) whose husband faced criminal fraud charges; having a meeting in a public place with a Minister to seek advice.

it is highly likely that Phil Goff as Neelam Choudary’s friend knew about the charges Kumar faced and it is very probable that Neelam was seeking advice from Dr Worth on matters relating to her husband (Internal Affairs deals with passports, permits etc). Kumar Choudary could have faced deportation once convicted and this would have weighed heavily on his wife’s mind. Neelam Choudary sought Goff’s advice as to who she should seek help from re: her husband. Phil Goff knew that Dr Worth had influence and could be persuaded if the woman applicant – shall we say – showed a bit of leg and cleavage!

Clearly Phil Goff pimped out Neelam Choudary and then used her to score political points. Phil Goff needs to come clean about the despicable way in which he used a woman to get at a minister, then kept quiet about it until it suited his political purposes and then leaked the details to the media so it would appear that John Key made it public.

So far Richard Worth is guilty of nothing more than cheating on his wife and God knows there isn’t a politician in the world that hasn’t done that. Phil Goff has done much worse, he has dragged the Labour Party and politics in general to a new low. We all thought that we couldn’t go lower in standards than that which Helen Clark set but Phil Goff’s standards of behaviour are positively subterranean.