Monthly Archives: Mar 2018

Centre-right commentators show their desperation

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When National lost the election in 2017, the centre-right of New Zealand politics was in a state of despair. Shock! Horror! How could Winston Peters support a centre-left Government?

Quite easily it seems. After all, Mr Peters did leave National in 1993 to form New Zealand First because he thought that the market policies of the party were going to cause irreparable social damage to New Zealand. He had opposed asset sales as a means of raising money and many of his supporters felt betrayed by both major parties.

Determined to get back at the Government that they are convinced is going to turn New Zealand into a socialist nirvana, the centre-right have wasted no time trying to undermine in any way they can the new Government. But there is just one problem: their cheer leaders seem to forget National were not any better at the same time in early 2009.

Mike Hosking, well known as a avowed National Party supporter, has spent much time trying to give the appearance of the centre-left Government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern being a disorganized, ill disciplined group that has no plans. He has been joined in recent days by columnist John Armstrong, who has criticized the Governments handling of the spy situation regarding Russia.

But are they disorganized? We are talking about a Government that has not even had time to deliver its first fiscal budget. We are talking about a Government that has not even reached the six month stage of its first year in office.

The situation with the Russian spies is one such case of the centre-right commentators trying to cast a misleading appearance. The New Zealand Secret Intelligence Service says it is not aware of any Russian spies operating in New Zealand. That is not to strictly say there are none, but that the Government is not aware of any and thus cannot expel anyone. It is also important to note that the New Zealand Government preferred to ascertain how New Zealand might be affected before it announced measures against Russia, instead of rushing into a knee jerk reaction.

It also smacks of hypocrisy. China most probably has significant spies in New Zealand, and indeed some people wonder if because of his training the National Party have a former Chinese spook in their ranks. Jian Yang denies he is a spook and so does the National Party, yet the latter works hard to cultivate significant Chinese investment here – no problem with that – but was often silent when credible concerns were raised about Chin

Another claim being made is that the Government has no plans. This could not be further from the truth. A quick look at the list of Bills of Parliament that are open for public submissions on the Parliament website show Bills of Government and a couple of ones submitted by Opposition parties. More importantly those Bills represent some substantial changes coming:

  • The Employment Relations Bill deals with a wide range of changes to employment law that the Government intends to put into law
  • The Charter Schools Bill ends the charade that is charter schools
  • International Treaty examination of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership
  • Education (National Education and Learning Priorities)Amendment Bill
  • Education Amendment Bill

So, the Opposition and the centre-right commentators can grumble all they want, but how much better had the National-A.C.T.-United Future coalition done at the same stage of their nine years in office? From memory, it was about the same time that their lack of a long term plan for New Zealand was in the early stages of revealing itself. I gave that Government the benefit of the doubt until about mid way through their second year, so I intend to do the same with this one.

Time for Facebook users to re-examine their presence

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As more news emerges about what went on with Analytica, I am sure that there are people who are actively weighing up their future use of Facebook. The revelations about potential misuse of member data to create targetted advertisements that may have influenced the U.S. Presidential election will have infuriated many Americans and non-Americans alike. As Facebook struggles to deal with the allegations swirling around, perhaps it is time for people to have a good hard look at their Facebook accounts.

For some people, their departure from Facebook will be natural in that for whatever reason they had decided it was time to let the social network started by Mark Zuckerberg  go anyway. For others it will come as a reaction to the worsening privacy breaches or the conclusion that their presence on it in terms of content they have put up and content they find is out of their control has gotten too much.

Facebook will not go into immediate decline. Barring Mr Zuckerberg shutting it down himself or some sort of major catastrophe (think of thermo-nuclear war), this network – love or hate it – will probably continue to grow on the back of new users in South Asia, Africa and Latin America.

For me as a user, despite being on Facebook every day, it has peaked. And in some respects it has started to decline. My friends list, despite making new friends outside of it, has remained largely stagnant for the last two years. A number of people who I used to be in semi-regular contact via Facebook Messenger have all but stopped using it, though they still maintain profiles – some of them have not actually posted anything themselves for months. I have taken down my photos from pre-2011 and the other day I downloaded a copy of all that I had put up on Facebook – it appears that I have been on it in some form or another since August 2007.

I know some people who have had business pages on Facebook have faced constant struggles with the company. They have ranged from security of the pages, to content going missing and in some cases the pages being suspended or somehow frozen for reasons that were never clear to them.

For me the constant sponsored advertisements have been a major problem. Having become aware that Facebook uses my content and data to help create targeted adverts and other content, believing that I will somehow change my already dim view of advertizing, I have significantly tightened up my settings.

But what really irks me is this potential global influence Facebook could have on elections around the world. This Analytica scandal and the politics that are happening around the fringe of it (including, but not limited to John Bolton) demonstrate to me that Mr Zuckerberg and his management team somehow believe themselves to be above the summons of elected officials. I am unclear about what domestic and international law says with regards to company officials being able to be summoned to another country to talk about actions that their employer has taken in breach of the law (domestic? international?). That said, I accept to be liable for summons by a particular country, a company may need a physical presence (office)in that country.

At the end of the day it comes down to risk. Unless it is banned by law or physically impossible to access in ones own country, no one is stopping a person from using Facebook, but one accepts that when they agree to the Terms and Conditions of Facebook, they accept that what their data is only safe from potential misuse if it has not been supplied.

Onset of Russophobia, or credible fear?

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13 nations around the world including France, Britain, Australia and America have joined Britain in expelling Russian diplomats and spies from their soil as part of a raft of measures against the Putin regime. So, I ask the question: Are there Russian spooks in New Zealand? There might well be. Since the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

People ask what is New Zealand doing about this?

Rather than rush in having made a rapid and possibly hasty – judgement that is not necessarily accurate, New Zealand’s response could be more consistent with waiting for the facts to be proven and taking action based on them. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says that the Secret Intelligence Service has found no evidence of Russian spies in New Zealand. Ms Ardern further says that if the opposite were true, as Prime Minister she would reserve the right order their expulsion.

From blocking United Nations attempts to pass resolutions against Syria and Iran for breaches of international law to the poisoning using polonium against a former spy Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. From the attempted annexation of the Crimea so Russia could gain better access to the Black Sea, to the suppression of the domestic opposition parties to ensure Mr Putin is returned as President, the Putin regime has continued to show scant regard for the law.

Whilst it is true many Russians love Putin and see him as a continuation of Russia’s line of strong leaders, there are many many more who absolutely despair. Corruption is rife. But few dare report it as journalists are frequently subject to harassment. Anyone from a sexual minority runs the risk of grave persecution if they come out. Cold War era arms programmes as well as a slew of new ones have been started – new planes, tanks, missiles are all in progress. All of this started or accelerated under the regime of Mr Putin.

I want to be clear now that this is not an outbreak of anti-Russian sentiment on this blog. It is a response to a pattern of increasing Russian belligerence that began with the election of Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2000 and which in that time has grown considerably both in terms of scope, in terms of the consequences and in terms of international tensions.

 

The reason why this is not an attack of Russophobia is because if it is that, then based on previous articles written for this blog, I have therefore had attacks of anti-American sentiment and anti-Chinese sentiment.

 

But as Mr Putin’s list of crimes that he may be complicit continues to grow, am I the only one wondering how much worse this can get before one side or the other does something they regret forever more?

 

Nurses fed up: Strike looming

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So, it is come to this. After negotiations and various pay rise offers have failed, industrial action in the nursing sector is about to rock the country.

Due to the (often misinformed) perception of the public, that by going on strike, nurses are somehow endangering patients, I believe nurses have been reluctant to carry out significant strike action.

This perception I believe has no credibility. The very vast majority of nurses would never think of knowingly putting their patients or somebody elses patients in jeopardy. They work in conditions that are hugely demanding on them physically and mentally. They are groped, spat on, verbally abused or otherwise mistreated by patients sometimes for the most minor thing, or simply because they were not quick enough responding to a call for assistance. They can work hours that mean they finish mentally and physically exhausted but somehow have to recover in time to do another shift maybe only several hours later: circumstances in which mistakes become inevitable.

A nurse to me is a blood and flesh angel of mercy. I would be dead if it was not for a nurse on 15 September 1989 (my mother) when I collapsed in the hallway at home with severe hypertension.

Nurses have a number of vital roles that District Health Boards, the Ministry of Health and anyone lucky enough to have avoided hospital might not always realize. A nurse is often the eyes and ears of a hospital when dealing with patients, because in the course of everyday nursing, conversations they have with patients will tell them a lot about how they are as well as giving them opportunities to sight visual changes.

Yes, a nurse might be required to dispense medication, do things like record blood pressure, make sure any dietary restrictions in pre-operation circumstances are being adhered to. But they also have to keep a detailed and quite lengthy paper record that that is time consuming, demanding and can have significant consequences if improperly kept.

I am honestly not sure how nurses manage to cope. Based on the descriptions given in newspaper and online news articles, nurses get shocking treatment for the service they are expected to deliver. And there is probably nothing that can prepare them for the mental demands placed on them – medical school is about learning the roles of nurses, the procedures that they need to perform and so forth, not about surviving a demanding day.

So, if these nurses strike – and in some respects, I hope they do – it might be the wake up call the Government, the District Health Boards and the public need. The current situation cannot be allowed to continue and that there are potentially major consequences if it does.

Would you rather a nurse is worked to breaking point and administers morphine when it was not needed because s/he was too mentally broken to realize the wrong medicine was being administered? Or would you rather the nurse, having gone on strike and – hopefully been noticed – is working in an environment where s/he no longer feels broken at the end of the shift?

It is just not cricket!

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Irrespective of which cricket playing nation you live in and irrespective of any observing nation you live in, I want people to know that cricket is so much more than a bunch of corrupt players tampering with the ball; throwing matches or otherwise bringing the game into disrepute. It is a game that  is played by nations comprising perhaps 25% of the worlds population.

In the past if there has been some sort of improper conduct associated with cricket it has – generally (a New Zealand tampering incident involving Martin Crowe and Chris Pringle in Pakistan in 1990 being one exception) – had its roots in Indian book makers or players being asked to perform certain actions, such as deliberately getting out on a particular ball or not taking runs. The people who have been caught in these acts have all brought the game into shame. But it has picked itself up and removed those troublesome individuals – New Zealand player Lou Vincent was banned for life from any involvement in the game; Salim Malik of Pakistan for earlier incidents

My respect for Australian cricket is in free fall. The nation we all loved to not support on the cricket field, the nation that won the 1999, 2003 and 2007 World Cups as well as the 2015 World Cup needs to take an ice cold hard look at itself and where it stands in the so called “gentleman’s game”.

This just is not cricket. This is stupidity on a monumental scale from a team that just as much as I and an awful lot of others dearly want to thrash in the cricket, came to respect their players brilliance – right from the Don, Allan Border, big Merv, the Waugh bros, Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke, Brett Lee, Shane Warne, Ian Healy and many many more who made the game great and a thrill to watch – thought were honestly above this shit. These gentlemen are, but the two fools mentioned below certainly are not.

This is disgusting beyond belief. Oh sure others did it too. Shahid Afridi bit the ball, so, apparently did Sachin Tendulkar. The latter got a one match ban.

But this is different. This was sanctioned by the highest echelons of the Australian team short of the coach. This was sanctioned by Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft, as well as a bunch of senior players.

Steve Smith might have resigned the Captaincy and David Warner the Vice Captaincy, but both now have to face the wrath of Cricket Australia and accept in full any punishment handed down by the I.C.C.