Our PM has given Obama a green light to start bombing ISIS. In John Key’s simplistic schema (repeated on Q and A and the Nation) ISIS is a terrorist organisation and its ok to drone kill anyone whose a terrorist. So much for real political solutions.
The Independent Police Conduct Authority’s criticism of Police for tasering a non-aggressive man in his own home reinforce the fears we had when tasers were introduced.
There’s too much grumping about the “coat-tailing” provision of MMP, whereby a smaller (lower-voting) party can bring in extra MPs (in proportion to their party vote) if they win an electorate seat.
The less accountable a public agency is, the more likely it is to become a law unto itself. This is true for the Security Intelligence Service. Only the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security is empowered to check what the SIS actually does, and to date it has been a pretty toothless watchdog.
I sighed when I read the Sunday Star-Times front page headline: “People-smugglers bid to sail first boat to NZ”. Here we go again, I thought. Another scare story playing to racists and those among us who are prejudiced against asylum seekers.
You would think there is a strong enough argument for an independent international inquiry. But not for our Foreign Minister Murray McCully. While visiting Auckland this month, the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister GL Peiris made a point of thanking Mr McCully for refusing to co-sponsor the UN Human Rights Council resolution.
A lot of official Japanese communications must be picked up by Waihopai’s dishes, given the communications satellites Waihopai targets are geostationary over the Pacific equator near Japan. When passed on to the NSA this Japanese information would be used to serve US interests, not New Zealand’s.
In 1996 and 2002 the people’s perception of how well the two main left-of-centre parties could work together was a big factor in their subsequent electoral fortunes.