The Tuhoe deal courts disagreement

Video of the Upokorehe demonstration at Maraetotara, Ohope from April this year.  They won their court case, but that won't stop the legislation rolling over the top of neighbouring Iwi interests and over the top of internal Tuhoe Hapu interests if the government and Tamati Kruger have their way. 

The Bill is bad because Tuhoe interests clash with other Iwi who have not settled with the NZ government - the sort of first-in-first-served scenario which suits the interests of the Crown and brings conflicts with their whanaunga in other Hapu.  It is also bad - as all these settlements are - because the settlement is fundamentally unfair:  being a diktat of the colonial regime to ensure its continuation and not an avenue for self-determination.  Tuhoe is unique because the Bill also represents another possibility dismissed.  The terms are only a fraction, a shadow, of what their 1896 legislation guaranteed - full local autonomy and the Crown restricted to limited public works purchases of land within the Urewera.

The Tuhoe settlement entity has already built its headquarters at Taneatua, and one does wonder if this has been paid for by a NZ government inducement (or bribe) to ensure they go along with the legislated agreement set up with Kruger et al.  By handing out a small bit of lolly the government hopes it can buy the outcome.  Contrary to the official lines that everything is fine, there 

is disease within Tuhoe from what I understand - and there is certainly disquiet amongst the neighbours if you hear the remarks at the end of the video from Big Jim!

Mixed media: what is better broadcasting?

Who could disagree with the objectives of a lobby group like the Coalition for Better Broadcasting?

--

In 2013, some of the people behind Save RNZ and Save TVNZ 7 joined together, along with media, legal and government-relations experts, to form the Coalition for Better Broadcasting Trust. The CBB aims to grow into a well-established and vocal supporter of public service broadcasting and media for many years to come. [...] The aim is the long-term education, enrichment and entertainment of all New Zealanders (not just Household Shoppers aged 18-49).

--

And who could disagree with the first point of their ten point plan? A public service television channel.

--

Such a channel could be similar to the hugely popular TVNZ 7. It could include elements of Maori TV, Open University, Parliament TV or access television like Triangle/Stratos. It could follow the SBS model, a BBC2 model, or it could simply be TV One without advertising.

--

Could be any format, so it draws no objection.  Who doesn't want a public service - ie. ad-free - TV channel paid for by other people?  I have advocated for much the same thing in principle in several blogs here and over at The Daily Blog.

Apart from a logo like a collapsed neon sign, who could disagree with anything in CBB Chief Executive Myles Thomas puts forward in his post at The Daily Blog:

--

1.         Defrost Radio NZ funding

2.         Establish a non-commercial television channel

3.         Fund these with a small levy on SkyTV and other commercial broadcasters, and on ISPs/Telcos

--

But.  Why is funding the issue with RNZ? RNZ is a white's-only Europhilic diversity fail. RNZ meets the CBB's own definition of 'what isn't better broadcasting': "limits contributions based on age, race, religion, politics, wealth, dress-sense or hairstyle."

I have demonstrated and quantified the racial exclusivity of RNZ in several posts on The Daily Blog.  Any additional funding would be to fill the pockets of white people in an organisation that does not employ or permit non-white people to contribute in any meaningful way.  RNZ is a Pakeha institution for and by Pakeha: they are the audience, the voice, the editors, the management, the staff.  No equivalent Maori radio network exists.

While RNZ broadcasts everything in English and under-delivers on its pathetic target of sub-one hour per day average Maori content (most of which is in English), Maori TV is 51/49 Reo/English.  Which is better? Which is more representative of the nation?  It's like black and white on the discrimination metric.  RNZ is bad broadcasting.

As for point 2. MTS and Maori TV have been here for 10 years as a public service broadcaster - a Maori broadcaster, for everyone. The equivalent state Pakeha TV channels are TVNZ One and 2 - which is the rub - they are not commercial-free and never have been.  Basically the CBB want a white version of Maori TV from what I can work out through the Pakeha jungle of nomenclature: 'Kiwis' and 'New Zealand' being the controlling concepts.  What the ambitious lobby group of elderly production staff, academics, government types and people wanting to pay to be on the Roll of Honour don't seem to appreciate in any of their website statements is the cultural binary.  

By government convention in its public service budget allocations all of radio goes to RNZ and all of TV goes to MTS.  Each get about $32m pa in direct funding by the government.  And TVNZ sits there beaming out vulgar populism in between ads and gives that profit to the government.  That's broadcasting policy under National and was no different under Labour before them when MTS was set up to satisfy the language obligations flowing from Waitangi Tribunal litigation.  

In part the CBB is overlooking Maori TV as qualifying as public service broadcasting, or worse.  Maori TV has minimal advertising - of which most is public service notices anyway - it is difficult to maintain it is not essentially (if not technically) public service broadcasting in its current state.  But CBB is born from Save RNZ and Save TVNZ7 campaigns dominated by the self-interested white middle class insiders who want to establish a permanent lobby outfit for their conservative/orthodox vision.  Such a group have little comprehension or interest in recognising Maori or any Treaty obligation, let alone anyone else outside the Anglosphere given Diversity is at No.9 on the ten point plan and their definition of minorities is always subsets of Pakeha. Those are my observations from what they have put out.

So Radio NZ gets the same amount as MTS in direct funding - that is how the government splits its public service broadcast funding - straight down the middle.  But MTS doesn't have a radio mandate or radio channel, and RNZ doesn't have a TV mandate or TV channel.  It's an asymetrical split - and a product of legacy and inertia and not of design or consistent policy.  It is fair to ask why things are the way they are and then suggest how things could be rationalised or realised.  But I am not sure the CBB are asking these questions and whether they represent the status quo or reform.  

How can a combined cheer squad of RNZ and TVNZ7 fans be pro-reform?  Just about nigh on impossible.  They are institutional and pro-establishment.  They are fighting defensively on the basis of status quo ante being progress.  They are a creation of the reaction inside a government system of policy, lobbyists, lawyers and the overlap of professional careers, ie. high wank in Wellington.  The CBB say they stand for all the audience, but from available data they are composed of a narrow segment of audience that most people would describe as grumpy old farts in their cardis, on a committee, writing grumpy letters to the editor.

The nation's basis - according to the government at least - is applied to broadcasting.  One Treaty partner is a proud and noble warrior-conqueror people living in a state of war with their neighbouring tribes before they found their way by ingenius navigation to settle in Aotearoa many generations ago.  They are represented by RNZ operating the National and Concert radio networks.  The other partner is the indigenous people, the Tangata Whenua, represented by the Maori Television Service operating the Maori TV and Reo channels on Freeview.  That is the binary. This is the dynamic.

Public service broadcasting - by which we mean no f***ing ads and nothing moronic - is a big umbrella in the shit storm of commercial TV under which shelters very strange company.  I recall discussions from Act members back in the day when formulating broadcasting policy: many Pakeha people who were willing to sell every state asset imaginable fought like Devils for their precious RNZ and the NZSO.

Why make those peculiar exceptions when they are prepared to sacrifice every other form of cultural subsidy?  To them those institutions are the agency of European heritage vital to maintain a sense of their identity.  **everyone elses's identity.  These organs, like the Universities, are crucial to the Pakeha infrastructure of self-belief and status.  It is an elite concern.  It is a government concern.

From what it appears, the CBB is another manifestation of this Eurocentric mentality of the Pakeha, clinging to foreign content and notions in a far away land from their origin and pretending this is national self-expression.  It is thoughtless colonialism.  The CBB refer to the European Union definition, they do things like refer to Mexico, Ghana and Fiji as 'third world'.  NZ with its National and Concert programmes and its symphony orchestra is therefore supposedly... first world?  A first world thoughtless colony.

Media makes maelstrom of forgotten 11 year old form letter

Duncan Garner on Radio Live was raving apocalyptic about David Cunliffe yesterday afternoon.  I hadn't been paying attention to media so I had missed it.  It must have been the self-inflicted wound of the century by the way he was flabbering.  Like he'd taken a brown paper bag off an Asian dude in a carpark of a Chinese brothel and Joyce had played the video of it in parliament or something.  Not even.

If it was a damaging blow it was only so because the set up by the Nats was delivered by the media - right on cue.  A king hit is what both media and Nats were proclaiming.  Press gallery hysteria meets National Party campaign tactics never had such an over-hyped anti-climax.  

The increasingly detached and overtly partisan Tory chief cheerleader, John Armstrong, was the first on his hind legs in the NZ Herald (to whom the Nats provided the drop) spouting resignation.  The headline says Cunliffe's resignation may be in order.  To many reading it seems far more appropriate to wonder if Armstrong's resignation may be in order.

After all Armstrong has given John Key a free pass on every one of his brain-fades, untruths and reneges.  All his raspy dry patrician outrage and incantations, all to oust Cunliffe for - of all things - forgetting about a form letter he had signed 11 years ago!  Armstrong has been a physical husk of his former self for several years now.  His hollowed Munchesque figure they have in the Herald reveals this fact.  Unfortunately the debilitation seems to have caught up to his mind.  The seagulls in the lobby of parliament may find it useful feed, but what value is this Tory hack in the sense of commentary to the general public?  Him and Garth George roosting up in the balconies of HMNZ Herald like bats - that's the image.  A right pair. Mad as bats, way past their prime, and then there's John Roughan and Fran. Bless them one and all.

The Herald was just the first reptile in the waterhole to take the bait - the pack will do the rest.  Pity the Herald never called on the 'Roastbusters' rape gang cops or the police minister to resign, they haven't called on the police commissioner or the police minister to resign over the NZ Police cover-up of the Sentry Taitoko death in custody which has been on ice since February. So many reasons to call to resign - and that is just the police minister.  Pity the focus and priorities of the velvet commentariat are so trivial.  Pity the media is triviality en mass.

Cunliffe had delivered himself an 'upper cut' as the TV One man put it in his live cross later that evening in their seven or so minutes of this lead item.  I didn't catch TV3, but I bet Paddy Gower was in some upper realm of ecstasy doing the same thing: a hatchet job.  I haven't seen more of an orchestrated beat-up on TV since the WWF wrestling show was last on air.  RNZ was playing at it too, labelling Cunliffe 'beleaguered' - yeah beleaguered from media hysteria of which RNZ is part.

Unless Armstrong has seen additional evidence in the drip feed behind Donghua Liu that does cast real and reasonable doubt over Cunliffe's competence or honesty then there was no reason for him to take that line. There is a lot of rumourmongering about dirt, but is this on others in Labour or on Cunliffe? [More is promised for tomorrow's edition according to the Herald's twitter feed tonight: a Labour Minister and a trip up the Yangtze. If this is anything like Worth up the Khyber then it's going to be a rum do.]

What a ridiculous frenzy.  The media are attempting to manufacture a crisis on the basis of what National reckons is below standard.  Laughable is it not?  Collins and Oravida, Key and the GCSB, Williamson, Wong, Worth... the Nats have corrupt practices in trumps compared with Cunliffe.  The day the media hold National to the standard they hold others is the beginning of the end for National. Until that day dawns it is going to be a tough ride in the Labour saddle.  

[Updated 9pm]

David Carruthers exonerates NZ Police as he is paid to

NZ Govt appointed 'Independent' Police Conduct Authority chairman, Sir David Carruthers, has been a busy chap.  So many malevolent and brutal policemen to keep slapping on the hand with a wet travel chit, where does one find the time? The cops have already told him to fuck off even on that - claiming it's double-jeopardy to have another bullshit round of internal discipline for the little thug. Why isn't the cop who lost his cool because he had to work a shift on Christmas Day and took it all out on a motorist in his own front yard with every torture device at his disposal... why isn't that thug cop getting charged?  Carruthers said it was unlawful... so prosecute him.  Oh that's right there is no-one to do that except the NZ Police who are also the criminals in these cases.  
NZ Herald:  On December 25, 2011 Mr Smillie was signalled by police to pull over as he was travelling along Arawa Rd in Whakatane. Despite the officer activating the patrol car's lights and siren Mr Smillie failed to stop and instead accelerated before turning into his property at high speed.

The officer followed Mr Smillie onto his property and advised him that he was under arrest for failing to stop and that he was required to undertake a breath screening test.

Mr Smillie actively resisted the officer's attempts to subdue him and after being warned that OC (pepper) spray would be used if he kept failing to comply, the officer drew his OC spray and used it against Mr Smillie.

--

Why was he being pulled over?  There's so much they won't say and why they won't report it.  The judges must have accepted some time ago in a series of steps in logic and tolerance that a constable may stop a motorist without any reason and make them perform things to satisfy them they are not unlawful and therefore may chase people who are not suspicious and arrest people who question their lawful authority.

From what I can work out the motorist/householder was never guilty of anything other than wondering why he was being persecuted.  He remonstrated with the cop and then the cop attacked him.  Now we have the IPCA saying that using chemical spray in people's faces is OK if there is 'resistance'.  They are lowering the threshold each time.  The original justification and only legitimate justification is using it is to prevent immediate harm.  And that immediate harm does not include the usual physical apprehension of an arrest initiated by the police officer themselves, let alone a policeman attacking someone, and it is not to induce compliance.  It certainly won't 'calm down' anyone - it is to cause them immediate acute debilitating pain which is the opposite of calming .  Use as a compliance measure is just simply torture.  They are torturing someone until they will do as they are told by the torturer. Carruthers thinks its basically kosher - both chemical weapons and electric shocks (so long as they don't last too long, say 10 secs or more depending).  This is Carruthers' position.  It is untenable for the IPCA chair to try to mitigate human rights abuses as he does. Torture is about 10 years imprisonment isn't it?

--

NZ Herald:

Despite the use of the spray Mr Smillie failed to calm down and the officer subsequently struck Mr Smillie with a police baton and pushed him against the fence in an effort to apply handcuffs. Following this Mr Smillie fell to the ground.

The officer then retrieved his Taser from his police vehicle and warned Mr Smillie he would be Tasered if he continued to refuse arrest. Taser Cam footage showed that the officer then released the Taser for 13 seconds before attempting to handcuff Mr Smillie. The officer then picked up the Taser and discharged it a second time before handcuffing Mr Smillie and returning to his police car.

"The Authority finds that the deployment of the Taser on two occasions amounted to an excessive use of force and was contrary to the law," Sir David said.

"This was aggravated by the fact that on the first occasion the Taser was used for an extended period of time of 13 seconds.

"The first use of the Taser was not in self-defence, as claimed by the officer and given there were other options open to the officer short of using the Taser, the Authority considers Mr Smillie's arrest could have been effected less forcefully after waiting for the arrival of other police officers."

Following the incident Mr Smillie was charged with assaulting police, possession of an offensive weapon, refusing to accompany and failing to stop. On 19 July 2012, at the Whakatane District Court, police withdrew the charges of assault and possession of an offensive weapon and Mr Smillie pleaded guilty to the charges of refusing to comply and failing to stop.

--

The other IPCA whitewash exoneration of police brutality is even more extraordinary due the plain ill-will involved. Long story short: Carruthers says that after you've shot them in the chest through the spine so they are a paraplegic (and they're splayed on the ground swearing mad shit at you as they would) if they don't roll over and do exactly what you say you can then kick them really hard in the face to stun them - that's OK. Shoot them, kick them in the head, put them in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives and no harm done. It's all legal. Cowardly behaviour. Revolting stuff.

13 unlucky for some

Anyone else notice that the election campaign has already begun? It started at some point between Hone Harawira of the Mana movement signing an alliance agreement with Vikram Kumar for the Internet Party on 27 May, and when Laila Harre was announced as leader of the Internet Party a few days later.

This was the end of the last lunar month of the Maori calendar, but because the next moon had risen before the Matariki stars were again visible the beginning of the new year will be the moon after that.  This is the intercalated month between years - an in between time.  It is called Te Tahi o Pipiri, meaning the first of the first month (Pipiri) rather than the last of the last month...but the new year - Te Tau Hou - is not until Pipiri. To my understanding the intercalary month is a chance to convene and wananga in the 'spare' time every two or three years, falling as it does in autumn when it is seasonally convenient to meet without the pressure of agricultural considerations.

It was the reaction of National and the right that defined the moment, when they went into attack mode - the first to blink, to show their fear.  David Farrar, for example, uses his twitter to react defensively to issues as they arise, to discredit and rebuke, rather than using it to push National policy or putting up cat photos.  So it was fascinating when Farrar went in overdrive over Harre, but more so about the money.  The only time Farrar goes green is with envy!

The right are apoplectic in a rage-dance hypocritcial that someone else has found their way into the pockets of a rich white man and that horror of all horrors it's a brown hand! One of their paragons of entrepeneurship and pirate prince of tech-geek uberdom is going to give his millions to a party of Maori and the left.  This has the right fuming like a stuffed diesel.  The Lusk/Slater takeover failed for the right, Bradbury won for the left - that is why the pain is so acute, the bitterness so feral in the media.  The right lost a $4 million arm wrestle and they are super pissy about it.   And then there's John Banks.

The open and shut electoral donation case (a surprise to the utterly corrupt political class as evidenced by Boag and Prebble) is the private prosecution's finest hour (even if it was the Crown who was forced to take on the trial).  Boag was on the Team Banksy mayoralty campaign that ended in disaster and she was present and in command at National's all-time disastrous 2002 campaign - so I do sincerely hope she is fully involved in many more campaigns for C&R and National.  Her and Labour's Mike Williams are constantly on the commentators rounds in the media despite them both being maladroit in the arts of corrupt practice they show such devotion toward.

I feel slightly sad for Banks even though I can't stand the man.  He certainly deserves a hefty sentence seeing how much hate he's dished out over his career, if not for maintaining a series of gratuitous fictions to distance himself from Kim Dotcom.  Pity then the judge's kid gloves have already saved him from a slap. Act is down to zero MPs, losing its already slim parliamentary resources in the process.  This meltdown is legendary.

John Banks will resign on Friday: Friday the 13th, a full moon of the 13th month.

Coat-tailing etc.

Coat-tailing, dinner-jacketing, sleeve-pulling, belt-looping, shoe-lacing, hat-tilting... and a cup of tea.

MMP is about proportional representation and making as many votes count toward representation as possible.  In the our MMP system, the second part - making votes count - is imperfect as we have many wasted votes to parties under the arbitrary and high 5% threshold.  As much as it may upset people the coat-tailing provision inside an imperfect system does make more votes count and so is more democratic than not having it.  Labour's vow to put up legislation to end the rule and reduce the threshold to 4% is undemocratic - a cynical move to cut off left wing competition.

MMP reform list for me:

* Citizen-only voting rights.

* South Island electorate quotient and General/Maori population division abolished as basis for electorates, ie. no General or Maori electorates or rolls, just one register of enrolled citizens.

* Party vote threshold lowered from 5% to 2%.

* Parliament total raised from 120 MPs to 130 MPs on condition that MPs basic salary be set independently by the Remuneration Authority at between min. 1.5 and 2.0 max. of average full-time wage/salary.

* 99 MPs elected from multi-member electorates of 3, 4, or in the case of urban areas 5 seats each.  

* Remaining 31 MPs apportioned as to party vote equation as currently, but those returned will be from candidates with smallest losing majority in an electorate (returned as extra MP for that electorate ie. all MPs are electorate MPs, there are no 'list' MPs as such and no 'list' candidates, or indeed the need for a list).

* Party pluralism and minimum representation for reo/sex/age:

1. Parties may only stand maximum number of candidates of one less than total returned (ie. 2 in a 3 member electorate, 3 in 4, and 4 in a 5.  Parties with two or more candidates must have at least one candidate a man and one a woman.)

2. Sectional ballot forms to ensure minimum guaranteed representation while every voter gets to vote for every candidate on an equal basis: In 3 seat electorates the form is divided into two parts based on the language competency of the candidate - English and Te Reo - returning the highest polling candidate from each part and then the next highest polling candidate from either part.  In electorates returning 4 or 5 seats all the candidates (regardless of language) under the age of 40 will appear in one part and the other two parts will be for English and Te Reo candidates over the age of 40.

I've posted on these issues before - this is a summary.  Looking at Ireland's similar situation with population and national condition I see the Irish lower house has 166 MPs in multi-member seats (with 20+ independents), the Northern Irish assembly at Stormont has 108 (going to 96).

Queen's Birthday 2014: Honouring police corruption

The outgoing NZ Police Commissioner, Peter Marshall, has been given a CNZM by the government.  That is below the re-instated knighthood so no one seems to have noticed he has been honoured.  Honoured by the Queen.  With the ongoing scandal of protecting the 'Roastbusters' rape gang from prosecution (because one of the young men was the son of a policeman) being his last and most memorable achievement as Commissioner, it is disconcerting to say the least to find the National government has decided this conduct is worthy of a medal.  Marshall's services to policing includes the services of protecting young rapists who want to be policemen, it includes protecting police who kill.

He - and now new Commissioner Mike Bush - would have been dismissed and investigated for a conspiracy to defeat the course of justice in this case if we had any politicians and officials with courage and integrity.  We clearly don't.  The elected officials are uniformly gutless individuals incapable of action.  Cowards to a man.  This is a collective failure of the political class and of civil society generally.  Despite, or perhaps because of, recent horrors India and Pakistan seem to be more responsive to police connivance in rape than New Zealand where the media refuse to expose it and describe it as criminal.

To add to the disgraceful inappropriateness of honouring a rape gang godfather the National government have honoured a senior police detective from the same district where they killed a man in their custody earlier this year in a police station and after three months there isn't even a coroner's report.  The police force of the New Zealand government is quite literally and without much, if any, exaggeration attempting to get away with murder.

But don't worry they've got the Royal honours system so they can't possibly have done anything wrong - not in the Queen's eyes at any rate.

Her Majesty the Queen of New Zealand has condoned it all in her honours list.  Those Westy skanks who get raped by wannabe cops and those Rewa gangstas that get bashed to death by them when they graduate are all part of good policing... according to the government's decisions on who they have chosen to elevate in the public esteem.

The past and recent evidence suggests that NZ Police are effectively unaccountable: they can - and do - assault, rape and kill as they please and Police Ministers such as the inept current Minister, Anne Tolley, let them.  Tolley referred her own police force to the toothless and misnamed Independent Police Conduct Authority on the Roastbusters scandal without taking any other action and still maintaining she has confidence in the Commissioner!  And yet with no political or civil pressure her contradictory and untenable position - and the criminal position of the NZ Police - persists.

The NZ Police statement:

--

Peter Marshall, CNZM: for services to NZ Police and the community. Mr Marshall was Commissioner of NZ Police from 2011 to April this year. He led the policing change from a largely responsive model to one of being actively focused on victims and preventing crime. He encouraged a partnership approach to road policing which led to the lowest road toll recorded in the 60 years since records were kept; delivered sustained reductions in recorded crime whilst managing within Police’s allocated budget; and responded to the drive for government organisations to deliver better public services. He was awarded a MNZM in 2000, and was a former Commissioner of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force.

Gary Lendrum, MNZM: for services to NZ Police and the community. Detective Senior Sergeant Lendrum has consistently provided outstanding service to victims’ families as well as enhancing the NZ Police reputation by conducting thorough investigations. He is highly regarded by his peers in Police and the wider justice sector including prosecutors. A pioneer of and trainer in investigative interviewing, Gary is a mentor and role model for past and present investigators. He’s a leader in intelligence sharing and in crime prevention, and is currently a team leader with the Major Crime Unit for Counties Manukau CIB.

--

Sentry Taitoko died - presumed murdered - at a South Auckland police station, killed by police staff on 23 February.  To date, after three months, no response or release of information from the NZ Police has been forthcoming.  They are covering up their killing, as killers do. The District Command are shutting it down. Now relate this to the specialities for which the detective is being honoured. What sick irony. What provocation.  Below is a copy of the blog I posted on 19 March, it might well have been addressed to Detective Lendrum:

--
Dear NZ Police,

Got that report yet, killer? Been more than a couple of weeks now. Waiting for the afternoon media shit-drop to bury this one? Like last time. Like how you buried, you know, how you killed him? You know. Someone in a police uniform did something to Sentry Taitoko which killed him. Killed by the NZ Police at a police station - all for the crime of disorderly conduct... in his own house.

How is any of this possible? It must be because you think you are above the law and not subject to it. It must be because you investigate your own crimes. Just like when one of your son's is caught being in a rape gang run under the cover of the Waitemata D's in west Auckland - nothing gets done.

Now, where is the toxicology report?

So glad [Peter Williams QC] is on it. Maybe you won't get away with it this time.

Yours, etc.
--