Monthly Archives: Oct 2018

Iain Lees-Galloway’s big mistake

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Recently a case involving a Czech national convicted on drug smuggling charges came to light. It did so because Minister for Immigration, Iain Lees-Galloway decided that the claim by Karel Sroubek, who was convicted of importing $375,000 in drugs, that he faced undue danger if deported back to the Czech Republic was indeed credible.

Mr Sroubek was due to have been deported after finishing his sentence at Auckland South Prison. Instead Mr Lees-Galloway has decided Mr Sroubek shall under “strict” conditions be allowed residency instead.

Perhaps Mr Lees-Galloway thought he was being sensible. Perhaps he thought he was doing New Zealand’s humanitarian reputation a favour. Perhaps he even thought there would somehow be a downside to not letting Karel Sroubek in.

Whatever the case – and perhaps Czech officials were corrupt, or otherwise not able to be relied on to properly handle the case against Mr Sroubek – the risks are in the public perception too high to let him stay. In my assessment the “strict” conditions that Mr Lees-Galloway put on him are laughable and if Mr Sroubek really is to stay here, they need to be tightened drastically. He has the following conditions imposed on him by order of Mr Lees-Galloway as Minister of Immigration:

  1. No criminal offending in New Zealand or elsewhere in the next five years*
  2. No fraudulent use of ID in the next five years
  3. Not to provide misleading information or conceal information from the authorities

*Wow. Not doing something people should not be doing anyway? WOW!!!! I mean really???

IF those are serious conditions, then I guess the following ones that I think are more appropriate would be considered draconian. Yet I think there are probably many New Zealanders who think even my conditions are lenient and in some respects, they are probably right.

At the very least the following conditions should be imposed in addition to the ones that actually were:

  1. Mr Sroubek be restricted to a particular police monitored address
  2. Have a tracking bracelet
  3. Report to the local police station until otherwise advised – say once a week
  4. Failure to comply with any one or more of these voids the residency and unless it is found that Mr Sroubek’s life is in immediate danger, are grounds for deportation

Right now, I am not in the camp of Mr Lees-Galloway. The Minister does have explaining to do to Parliament about the conditions that Mr Sroubek is subject to. The Minister should take counsel on the matter, if for no other reason than because the person concerned is subject to very serious offences that in some national jurisdictions include the death penalty. And the Prime Minister would be well advised to stand him down if he does not.

Government rushing oil legislation

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The Crown Minerals (Petroleum)Amendment Bill is before Parliament at the moment. It has come back from the submissions phase, where 2312 submissions were collected from members of the public, N.G.O.’s and others. In the next few weeks it will go back to the House of Representatives for its third and final reading.

Despite its promises of transparency, I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with those who oppose the legislation in claiming that it is being rushed. Yes we had a chance to make submissions (though mine was destroyed when my USB drive corrupted itself one day and never got to be submitted). Yes we were given a chance to speak to the submissions before the select committee.

But I nevertheless believe that too much haste is being made in progressing this legislation. This is especially since the announcement in April that oil and gas would be phased out did not involve any prior consultation with the oil and gas sector, or any apparent effort to figure out what alternative sources of fuel could be developed. The stance is capped off by the chair of the oil and gas industry body PEPANZ, Cameron Madgwick. Mr Madgwick has gone on the record as saying that the industry would rather have certainty about the process going forward in 2018 than being offered a new block for exploration.

As it is, I have always believed that totally ridding New Zealand of oil and gas is never going to happen and that the Government will find itself being forced to make concessions of some sort or another. It will also find that its failure to acknowledge the lack of a nation-wide blue print for meeting New Zealand’s energy needs in the forseeable future proves problematic with no clear priorities, objectives for meeting those priorities or policies to give effect to the objectives, in place.

Even if New Zealand does meet its objectives, will it make any difference? I think New Zealanders are more conservative than Labour and the Greens are willing to admit when it comes to energy. Certainly people realize that a few significant policy decisions in major countries like India, China or the United States could lead to changes that completely undermine any in roads New Zealand makes in carbon emissions.

So, Labour can rush this Bill of Parliament through as it looks like they will try, but it is not a well crafted law and will cause them and their Green allies some significant headaches in the months and years to come.

Government doing okay considering differences

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Yesterday I blasted the state of politics in New Zealand and how I find myself along with others feeling abandoned by the party we supported over the Trans Pacific Partnership. Whilst all true and I stand by it, this is just one dimension to a multi-dimensioned state of New Zealand politics, which this article will discuss.

New Zealand, despite its nearly 25 years of experience with coalition Governments, nonetheless has a somewhat chequered history with them in a Mixed Member Proportional environment. M.M.P had its first election in 1996, which resulted in a hung Parliament – neither the incumbent National Party or the Oppposition Labour Party were large enough as a result of that election to form a Government on their own and needed New Zealand First, which had gathered 17 seats and held the balance of power.

New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters chose National. That lasted 20 months and about a year after it formed, the then Prime Minister Jim Bolger was ousted by his deputy Jenny Shipley. After a tumultuous eight month in which Mrs Shipley floated the sale of Wellington Airport, privatizing the energy sector and pushing through reforms that led to significant increases in university fees (and equally significant student revolts in campuses across the country in 1999), the coalition Government collapsed in acrimonious circumstances.

Contrast that with the coalition Government of today, and contrary to the assertions of National Party Leader Simon Bridges that it is in disarray, the Government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is doing alright. Do they agree on everything? Absolutely not and there are plenty of good opportunities coming up for the two to have major disagreements. Mr Peters, whilst claiming to reject the neoliberal stance of both National and Labour, undermined that when his party chose to support the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, something myself and others had staunchly hoped he would reject.

They are co-operating on other matters. Mr Peters got a N.Z.$1 billion injection of spending into foreign aid shortly after he became Minister for Foreign Affairs (for a second time). New Zealand First is able to announce significant projects for rural development, something that National lagged behind on during its time in office.

New Zealand First is likely to clash significantly with the Greens. On issues such as defence, justice, criminal law and so forth, New Zealand First will always be more conservative than the Greens. It is not to say that the stance is necessarily correct as there is a great need to legalize medical marijuana as a matter of urgency and review how we treat drug addiction, which is distorting crime statistics significantly with arrests and punishments for relatively minor offences.

Whilst the Greens have made some progressive since Metiria Turei’s departure, it is still struggling with the fallout from Mrs Turei’s admission of having lied to Work and Income New Zealand. This gives New Zealand First a chance to make inroads in pushing the great body of policy that makes up the party manifesto. Whether N.Z.F. realizes this and seizes the opportunity is another story altogether.

The party will also probably clash with Labour at some point. Labour, despite its swing to the left in the last election is still tarred – and might be forever – by its experiment in the 1980’s with market economics. It’s failure to buy back the electricity grid in full has disappointed many. It’s reluctance to announce significant increases in investment in science, diversifying the economy

I am expecting to see significant further announcements across the remainder of this Parliamentary term in a range of areas – from the Defence Force announcing what will replace the C-130 Hercules transports, to the $300 million promised for Christchurch transport to the education review and how the concerns over oil and gas bans will be tackled.

But that does not change the fact that if an election were held in the very new future your guess would be as good as mine about how I would vote. Right now, I honestly don’t know.

Low tide in politics

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I feel as if it is low tide. It is not moving in any particular direction – I do not feel an attraction to a particular political party at the moment. So much so that were an election held today, as to who I would vote for, your guess would be as good as mine – I honestly could not tell you.

To have members such as Fletcher Tabuteau consistently attack the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement inside and outside of Parliament and drum up support for ending it, only to then see them vote enthusiastically for it, infuriates many.

New Zealand First made a promise that it would see out the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. It has consistently attacked using its Members of Parliament and the Leader Winston Peters. Its Members of Parliament all told me at one point or another that they did not want a bar of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.

The problem is who do I vote for?

I am too conservative to be a Green – I do not agree with them on most things including foreign policy, defence and justice, but also the feasibility of ending coal and gas in New Zealand. Their opposition to having a dysfunctional defence force, along with a general distrust of the military establishment raises questions about what they would do were a war where the U.N. requests N.Z assistance breaks out.

In some respects I might also be on the conservative wing of Labour were I to vote for them. Labour was my first vote – a misguided one at that – in 1999, when New Zealand voted to be rid of a three term National-led Government that had had nine yeas to change from being the neoliberal party that enabled massive market reforms, but at great cost to New Zealanders.

So, you say I should vote for New Zealand First?

No. New Zealand First and I have had a fractuous relationship. I enjoy getting to know people when I joined and the culture was quite nice. I have always been inspired by the Party’s : 15 Fundamental Principles, which supported pretty much most if not all of the basic themes that the party wants to take home: equality for all; retirement at 65%., a sustainable environment, better protection of our assets and resolving the Treaty of Waitangi claims.

Others might ask whether I would be interested in Social Credit. I honestly have no idea. Social Credit would – I suspect find themselves constantly standing on the toes just to draw level with the eyes of New Zealand First and the Greens would not look that natural and one could ask “how long, really?”. It is not that I am trying to put them down, and some of their policies – I have not read anywhere near all of them, and am not sure when I would get around to it – do look fine on paper.

Those are my feelings about this 1 year after Labour took office. On the whole Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is probably quite happy with how things have gone and will be more than pleased to see that National, like Labour before them, are capable of having bad days.

Toxicology report for National

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A report sits on the desk of National Leader Simon Bridges. It is labelled “Toxicology results: National Party, 10/2018”. They contain the results of a batch of tests done on the toxic internal environment of the New Zealand National Party.

The results are clear: National has a toxic internal environment that is proving hugely damaging to the party. The claims of Mr Bridges that there is no “cultural” issue within the party are those of a leader who is in complete denial of the situation.

Labour and the Greens did not get to the high placing they currently have on 1 News Colmar Brunton polls simply by turning up to work. They achieved that placing by being consistently the better performing, by having policy for a change and getting on with implementing it instead of being caught up in divisive damaging machinations. Credit to them for doing so.

When the A.C.T. Party, normally National’s friend is so disgusted with the state of its partner that the Leader of A.C.T., David Seymour is openly critical then there is a significant problem.

National’s toxicology report shows a biological culture in its Molesworth Street offices in Wellington that is not fit for human beings. It is of a place with questionable work place practices, ethics and accountability. It has hanging over it like the stink of rotten fish, the Jamie Lee Ross saga, where despite Mr Ross having been taken to a mental health unit and discharged into the care of a friend, something putrid clearly still remains.

The detritus of past scandals permeate the place as well. Several high ranking National Party M.P.’s who held significant portfolios in the previous Government are covered in muck, of which at least some is of their own making. Arch rival and former Minister of Police and Justice, Judith Collins might be in Opposition, but her reputation is tarnished forever more by the Oravida Scandal involving her husband David Wong Tung. It is further tarnished by investigative journalist Nicky Hager exposing  in his book “Dirty Politics” the dirty activities of bloggers such as Cameron Slater and Ms Collins’ links to them.

Deputy Leader of the National Party, Paula Bennett is not free from blame either. Her involvement in this has brought almost as many questions regarding her conduct and future in Parliament as that of her boss on himself. Her combative nature will work against her at this time, because when Ms Bennett, like her boss, should be eating humble pie most probably she will be digging her heels in.

There will be a few National M.P.’s who will be leaving with their heads held high, dignity intact, but not for any reasons to do with the miserable muck raking of the last two weeks. They will be leaving intact because they kept their heads down, got on with their jobs and did not partake in the manufacturing of the mud that was subsequently flung to the farthest parts of the Party. Namely former Attorney General and Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson, as well as former Speaker of the House David Carter. Neither are seeking another term in 2020.

They are two M.P.’s that the rest of National would well do to look at for ideas on the sort of standards New Zealanders expect and which they had better achieve if National want this Government to be a one term wonder. Because should Mr Bridges fail to clean up the mess that his party has dissolved into, the 2020 election will be decided before it is even fought.