Senator Ted Kennedy has died and he can now finally make his peace with Mary Jo Kopechne forty years after he killed her. In the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident, the car Kennedy was driving ran off a bridge and plunged into water, resulting in the death of passenger Mary Jo Kopechne.
As the old joke goes, more people have died in Ted Kennedy’s car than in US nuclear accidents.
There is a great deal of press at the moment about some Mongrel Mob hangers on being evicted from Housing NZ tenancies in Lower Hutt.
All the news articles mention their gang connections but there is perhaps a more sinister reason they are being evicted. Perhaps it is because the neighbours have heard about the tragic consequences of Silly First Name Syndrome.
Under the photo on page A3 of the Dompost this morning was this caption;
Family stand: Community work Patria Tamaka and her father, (Mongrel Mob president) Tai Pairama, holding his 2-year-old daughter, Tia Maria Skudder Pairama, are trying to get their Housing New Zealand Corporation eviction notices overturned.
Poor wee Tia Maria Skudder – life looks pretty bleak with a name like that.
Two pronouncements and two price cuts on fuel so far Gerry Brownlee is batting 2 – 0.
Fuel companies announced today a further drop of three cents a litre.
Gerry should speak out more often.
The Governemnt has ordered a fuel price inquiry. Whoopy doo…that will achieve sweet fuck all.
As you can see from this graph handily supplied by BP (Click to enlarge image) the place they should be looking at is the big blue segment called “Taxes” currently sitting at 40% of the cost of a litre of fuel. Now almost all of those taxes are percentage taxes meaning that the higher the pricce the higher the tax and the most iniquitous tax of them all is GST sitting ontop of all the other taxes. Since when has a tax ever been a “good” or a “service”?
Almost all of the rest of the price components are almost impossible for the government to attempt to control, except for the green bit which is the fuel company margins, operating costs (including tax) and service station profits and sitting at 8% it is hardly usurious.
We can exert little or no control over the international cost of product thus the only area the inquiry can realistically look at is the taxes.
Best we go about looking then.
On a personal note I think the higher the better as far as fuel prices go and $2.50 isn’t nearly high enough to achieve my own personal and highly selfish goal of empty roads so I can travel unimpeded.
However on a more serious note, higher fuel prices will accelerate the tanking of th economy as workers find that they can no longer afford to travel to work, that public transport can’t get them there short of a two hour trip with 15 interchanges and 1000m of walking.
Not only that the cost to freight anything becomes loaded into absoluely everything, trucking companies go to the wall and business start contracting.
The pity is that it is the poor that suffer and that National once again has to rescue New Zealand from the clutches of inept socialists who have squandered the best years this country has ever had in order to pursue an agenda that hasn’t improved anyone life in New Zealand, least of all the poor.
via email
I’ve found the reason at last as to why our fuel prices are going through the roof and it has nothing at all to do with the fallacy that is Peak oil. It is geography, plain and simple.
The Oil Rigs & Wells are in Taranaki
The Refinery Is In Whangarei
The Tank Farms Are In Auckland
& The DipSticks Are In Wellington
With the decision by a judge today to commit el Jefe Phillip Field to trial in the High Court on 40 corruption charges it has come for the time to match almost every juridiction in the civilised world and for New Zealand to have a Independent Corruption and Crime Commission.
Australia has one, the US has one, Canada has one, the UK has one all of the countries that Labour cited as reasons why we should have our draconian Electoral Finance Act.
Philip Field already has besmirched the once honourable standing of MP’s and if convicted will have sullied other MP’s even more. Labour with their constant and flagrant breaches of Electoral Law, misappropriation of funds should also be the target of such a Commission.
The Commission would need to be tough, have teeth and the power to compel witnesses to speak, gather evidence, prosecute and levy massive fines against those found to be corrupt.
It should also cover all MP’s, All government departments, All SOE’s, All registered political parties and their office holders.
Back to the Philip Field saga, there can be no wriggle room for Clark or Williams or indeed anyone in abour, when in evidence heard before the court on Wednesday, builder Keith Williams told of writing a letter to several Government ministers, including
then Immigration Minister Paul Swain and Prime Minister Helen Clark.
Got that, despite Calrks assertion before the election in 2005 that she knew nothing about it, despite saying in 2006 that he was “guilty of nothing more than being helpful”, despite setting up an inquiry that found no wrongdoing, we now find out that she indeed did know about the mess that is Phillip Field, she not only knew, but knew enough to set the terms and conditions of the toothless inquiry in such a way as to apparently vindicate him, then she claimed vindications and so did Michael Cullen. Remember during all of this time Phillip Field was a sitting LABOUR MP.
All along though they knew all about it, they aided and abetted Phillip Field, arguable they obstrcuted justice and now as we know Phillip Field is off to the Hign Court to face 40 charges of corruption. LABOUR MUST COME CLEAN. I look forward to hearing the full evidence in this trial including the defence evidence.
John Armstrong must have taken his talking points straight from the ninth floor in his two sycophantic articles in the Herald this morning. What is patently clear is that he hasn’t turned even one page of the report. There is no other explanation for his toadying, he would not be able to write what he has if he had just bothered to read even Section 1 and 2. If he had struggled on and managed to read sections 3 – 8 he would have been in no doubt that the report that should have been damning of Peter Hausmann was very mild though still critical.
The only way matters can be settled is for the TWO draft reports to be published so we can see just how much manipulation of the facts has been done.
The one and only thing that Armstrong has got right in both of his articles is that Annette King spoke too soon and that she is not exonerated by the report. Not that she is implicated either because the reviewers simply didn’t look into her involvement nor that of her husband Ray Lind, out of scope you see.
This is a larger and better written report than the Ingram report but an Ingram report it is nonetheless.
Technorati Tags: corruption, scandal, health, lazy journalism
The Hawke’s Bay District Health Board corruption scandal is now being covered in the Herald, in depth and also the SST. Labour’s whitewash isn’t going to wash and that is why the Air New Zealand Slave Labour scandal got an airing. Here is a round up of HBDHB stories.
Fran O’Sullivan: Hausmann’s punt for vindication – 16 Mar 2008 – Public healthcare news – NZ Herald
Healthcare of New Zealand’s chief executive Peter Hausmann took a big punt by going public on Thursday claiming he would be vindicated by an inquiry into the management of his conflicts of interest on the former Hawke’s Bay District Health Board.
Two days before the inquiry team’s final report was due to be delivered to Health Minister David Cunliffe, Hausmann effectively said he could stay silent no longer while his reputation continued to be attacked in Parliament.
Lawyers usually counsel against claiming victory until judges or, in this case the Director-General of Health’s review panel, release their findings.
But Hausmann was confident enough after all the toing and froing between his lawyers, Russell McVeagh, and the review team, to claim that the final report would vindicate and explain his position.
At issue now is whether Hausmann’s comments may have set the scene for a legal challenge to the inquiry team’s report.
Quite how that reconciles with the draft report which said “There were significant barriers to a vendor other than Healthcare New Zealand succeeding with the proposal. Healthcare New Zealand and Peter Hausmann, on the other hand, knew what was required as it had seen the February 2005 board paper, which set out what the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board wanted’?” is beyond every commentator except Peter Hausmann, Annette King, Ray Lind and David Cunliffe.
Fran O’Sullivan: Contracts challenged – 16 Mar 2008 – Public healthcare news – NZ Herald
Hausmann is now on full attack against the former board;
Former Hawke’s Bay District Health Board member Peter Hausmann has challenged the interests of other former board members in the management of health board commercial contracts.
Hausmann – who is at the centre of an inquiry into the management of his own conflicts of interest at the health board – this week went public claiming the final report which is expected to be released tomorrow would vindicate him.
The ONLY way he knows the report will “vindicate him” is if he has seen it, leading to questions as to whether the minister has also seen it.
District Health Board members go to police – Sunday Star-Times – National News
Two District Health Board members have gone to the police to ask them to investigate the case.
TWO MEMBERS of the sacked Hawke’s Bay District Health Board have asked police to investigate the Peter Hausmann conflict of interest case, saying they believe the review panel findings, due out tomorrow, have been “hijacked for political expediency”.
Diana Kirton and Helen Walker lodged a complaint with Hastings police on Friday, and say the move was endorsed by other former board members. They also want police to investigate the actions of health board managers around the contracts with companies Hausmann is involved in. Kirton and Walker say they gave police evidence recovered after computer files were sent to London for forensic examination. That “supports our view that board contracts were seriously compromised”.
Hausmann rather predictably considering he has two government ministers and the husband of one of them in his pocket, laughed off the complaint.
Board games in Hawkes Bay health – Sunday Star-Times – National News
A useful timeline and cast of characters is listed in the SST by Anthony Hubbard. Just reading that un-biased litany of conflict should raise hackles.
The Hive: Baygate
The Hive reports that the SST has an article on page A3 from Ruth Laugesen which asks;
Ruth Laugesen reports Annette King saying “she and her husband Ray Lind will be cleared of wrong doing” by tomorrow’s report.
How does she know this? And why have there been such radical changes to this report between first draft and the final version? This is a very bad look. All the major characters talking in advance with great confidence about being vindicated.
Indeed!
Lastly there is fellow blogger Inventory1 at Keeping Stock who has his own questions;
I have a few questions of my own.
* How would he know that the report “vindicates him”?
* Has he or his legal team already seen the report?
* Given the snide comments that he has made in the House about “smoking guns” and who they are pointed at, has David Cunliffe already seen the report?
* How can a report, which in its first draft was so criticial of Hausmann’s involvement – “There were significant barriers to a vendor other than Healthcare New Zealand succeeding with the proposal. Healthcare New Zealand and Peter Hausmann, on the other hand, knew what was required as it had seen the February 2005 board paper, which set out what the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board wanted.” (as per Hansard, 13/3/08) – change so much in its final form, that Hausmann now claims to be exonerated?
* Has the review team also considered submissions from the Board, and was any weight given to them?
Something very rotten has been happening at the HBDHB, but I bet the report that comes out tomorrow has King, Lind and Hausmann smelling of roses.
Technorati Tags: corruption, scandal, hawke’s bay, health
The emails just keep flooding in about the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board.
The sacked members of the board have issued a press release.
HAWKE’S BAY HEALTH BOARD REPORT EXPECTED TO BE A “WHITEWASH”
The former board members of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board expect the review panel’s report, due out on Monday, will be a “whitewash”.
Based on comments made to date, both inside and outside Parliament, they suspect the report will fail to address many of the key issues and ignore evidence given in the Board members’ submissions.
Comments made under Parliamentary privilege this week indicated that the final report will be radically different from the first draft.
“This whole process reeks of political interference,” the former Board members said today.
“Based on comments made by Mr Hausmann earlier today, it appears that he has been given advance notice of some of the report’s content. It now seems clear that this exercise has been nothing more than a drawn-out, pointless, whitewash,” the former Board members said.
“There seems little doubt now that the only way the public will get full disclosure and accountability on this matter is for the Auditor General to investigate. We will continue to ask him to do just that.”
The purpose of the report was to review the conflict of interest concerns surrounding Government-appointed Board member Peter Hausmann and the way in which the Board, the chief executive and senior managers handled those conflicts.
“We’ve always maintained that the conduct of Mr Hausmann, chief executive Chris Clarke and certain senior managers in managing the conflicts of interest was, and remains, unacceptable for a publicly accountable entity,” said the former Board members.
- ends -
Yes, unfortunately for Cunliffe the original draft report will be seeing the light of day on or about the same day he reaches for his bucket of whitewash.
Technorati Tags: Whitewash, coverup, scandal, corruption, health, Hawke’s Bay
